Larissa’s Story
Post By: Larissa Coulas
I’ve had four concussions throughout my life, and truthfully, I never took the time to consider the long-term effects of what these brain injuries were doing to me. I’ve been an athlete all my life and I was more focused on getting back on the court, the field, or the ice. This all changed for me last year when I started randomly getting splitting headaches completely out of the blue. It started gradually, with a headache every other day but it soon became a chronic headache that severely impacted my life. I was studying at the University of Waterloo and the semester had just started. I found myself unable to go to classes and saw doctor after doctor trying to figure out what was going on until I finally accepted my reality, dropped my courses and moved home. Which might sound much easier than it was. I had a lot of trouble accepting that I couldn’t just wait out my headache and get back to the university life that I’d already missed so much of. For me, going home felt like my life was over, but really, it’s where my healing started. I tried everything; eye exams, physiotherapy, chiropractic care, massage therapy, x-rays, MRIs, and doctor after doctor until I was finally able to see a neurologist. The span between my first headache and my first neurology appointment was almost 4 months, which may not seem like a long time to someone who’s not in chronic pain, but it was an excruciating wait. Going into my appointment, one of my biggest fears was having to go on steady medication as I didn’t want to have to rely on pills for the rest of my life. It took me a while to accept but after a lot of reassurance and lots of trial and error, we think we found a combination that works for me. I still don’t have a firm diagnosis for what happened; whether it was post-concussion syndrome or a chronic migraine condition that was brought on due to my concussions. I’m struggling to accept that I may never know what caused these headaches and just have to deal with the day-to-day challenge of managing them. It’s now been more than 10 months since my headaches first started and the progress that I’ve made is unquantifiable. While I still have more work ahead of me, I’m thankful that I’m now able to return to some things I love and go about my normal routine with little to no headache. I’m also grateful that my family decided to tell me about the Keep Your Head Up foundation and that I’ll be able to be a part of such a great community. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year it’s that keeping your head up can be hard, but having people around you who support you makes all the difference.