Ask anyone who's ever suffered from one-- concussions are a pain in the neck. I'm unlucky enough to have gone through the injury and recovery process four times now (I'm recovering from my most recent one as I write this). Needless to say, I think I've got some knowledge when it comes to concussions. Due to my state the past few weeks, I figured I should write something about concussions.

All I could come up with was: CONCUSSIONS F*CKING SUCK. So, here you go:

1. The pain

This one is pretty much a given. That initial injury usually hurts pretty darn badly. But after that, especially if you have a concussion, the pain follows you into the recovery process. In one case, I suffered from headaches and sensitivity to light and sound for nearly two months, which sucks. It gets especially bad once you hit that plateau of tolerance to ibuprofen or tylonal, so the medicine doesn't do a whole lot to help you anymore.

2. The dizziness

The dizziness is not something that happens with everyone, but it has for me two of the four concussions. The dizziness basically makes it so that your world spins in front of your eyes, kind of like you're drunk, but in a considerably less-fun way. Coupled with the nearly unbearable pain in your head and the sensitivity to light and sound, you're basically unable to function at a normal level.

3. The appetite changes

Again, this isn't something that is experienced by everyone who's ever had a concussion. And even then, people fall on a spectrum of appetite changes. For some, they lose it entirely due to nausea that results from the dizziness. In a few of my cases, I've been ravenously hungry. My doctor said this means it's a "metabolic injury", which I don't quite understand. All I know is I want to eat everything in sight, which is detrimental to my weight and my wallet.

4. Basically being bed-ridden

Due to several of the reasons above, often following a concussion, you're basically bedridden. Doctors recommend "complete brain rest", which means all you can do is sleep and eat. Nowadays, complete brain rest is nearly impossible thanks to the smartphones and computers most of us carry around. Even then, your screen time is limited-- if not forbidden entirely. After a certain point, the worst part of a concussion becomes the sheer boredom. You'll feel like the pain, the dizziness, and your weird appetite might feel better if you could just watch some damn netflix (don't! You shouldn't watch anything longer than 20 minutes with a concussion)

5. The aftermath

Especially if you have a bad concussion, there's sometimes an aftermath that follows you for years. One of my concussions made it so I couldn't finish my sophomore year of high school, so my junior fall was packed full of extra work I had to do to finish the previous semester. Also due to that same concussion, a lingering effect of the concussion made it so I got seriously bad migraines about once a month. Currently, I'm extremely worried about the pile of schoolwork I need to make up. Also, it sucks that I probably can't go back to zumba for another month (you need to rest your body as much as possible, even during the aftermath of a concussion).

Needless to say, concussions are the worst. Some of us (like myself) should go around with helmets on because concussions are so drawn to us. For everyone else, be careful of your head-- it's very important! And if you get a concussion, listen to everything your doctor tells you to do. That is imperative to your recovery.