Changing Your Mindset with Clara Silcock
Show Notes:
Welcome to another episode of the Post Concussion Podcast. In conversation with us today we have Clara Silcock, exercise enthusiast and intestinal failure and nutrition pharmacist working in one of the largest teaching hospitals in the UK. Clara suffered a concussion last year with plenty of different symptoms arising ever since. During today’s episode, she tells the story of experiencing a mundane injury with long term consequences, trying plenty of different kinds of treatment, and changing her mindset to better face her changed circumstances. She shares the details of her changed relationship with exercise and work, the challenges she has faced, and the difficulty of forking out money for treatments without knowing if they will work. In conclusion, we agree that you can get better at going through the challenges you are faced with over time, especially when there isn’t a quick fix. We hope you join us for another encouraging episode today!
Key Points From This Episode:
• An introduction to today’s guest, exercise enthusiast and intestinal failure and nutrition pharmacist Clara Silcock.
• How her injury occurred at home using a TRX attached to her door frame during lockdown.
• What it felt like for her when things didn’t go back to normal after the injury.
• The frustration of ‘what if’ that everyone has to face.
• What she has tried in her recovery journey: meds, physiotherapy, a concussion clinic, osteopathy, cranial osteopathy, and two kinds of acupuncture.
• The treatment she received at the concussion rehab clinic.
• What she would say has helped best so far: seeing an osteopath, and giving herself time.
• Why it is important to be able to change your mindset: this isn’t an overnight fix.
• What the osteopath does: manipulation, stretches, and more.
• How you can create tension in your shoulders by protecting your head.
• Her changed relationship with exercise following the injury.
• The role of fatigue in post-concussion sufferers.
• One of the biggest challenges she has faced: pain, discomfort, and frustration.
• The difficulty of spending money on therapies without knowing if they will benefit you.
• Her relationship with work following the initial injury.
• How you get better at what you’re going through over time.
Schedule a One-On-One with Bella Paige
Post-Concussion life can be extremely difficult to manage. These one-on-one meetings are not only for survivors but their family and loved ones as well!
Get help with navigating post-concussion life, retiring from a sport, finding specialists near you, next steps, and much more!
Follow Post Concussion Inc on Social Media to stay up to date on the podcast
Transcript - Click to Read
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:05.2] BP: Hi, I’m your host Bella Paige and welcome to The Post Concussion Podcast, all about life after experiencing a concussion. Help us make the invisible injury become visible.
The Post Concussion Podcast is strictly an information podcast about concussions and post-concussion syndrome. It does not provide nor substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. The opinions expressed in this podcast are simply intended to spark discussion about concussion and post-concussion syndrome.
Welcome to today’s episode of The Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige and today’s guest, Clara Silcock. Clara is an avid gym goer and runner and exercise enthusiast. Previously doing hurdles and soccer, Clara is an intestinal failure and nutrition pharmacist working in one of the largest teaching hospitals in the UK. She currently lives and leads with her boyfriend and they love a bit of home DIY and all things interior design. Clara experienced the concussion just over a year ago and has been experiencing lots of different symptoms and we’re going to get into that today.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:45.9] BP: Welcome to the show, Clara.
[0:01:47.7] CS: Thank you.
[0:01:50.2] BP: Do you want to tell everyone a bit about your concussion injury to start?
[0:01:53.9] CS: Yeah, sure. It was just over a year ago, I was doing some exercise at home because England was in lockdown so we couldn’t go to the gym and I was using like a TRX type resistance band attached to my door frame at home with some weights attached to it and I didn’t quite lock the door properly and midway through my session while I was doing a seated row, the door flung open, the weights and the carabiner.
Yeah, basically catapulted myself in the face with the resistance bands and the carabiner of the TRX machine, TRX fling from the door and knocked myself out and gave myself a concussion pretty much straight away. I didn’t really think much of it really straight away. I just thought I’ve just kind of made myself a little bit dizzy, probably given myself a black eye, I’ll be fine in the morning, put some ice on it and just rest it for the rest of the day.
I had an immediate headache so I thought, “This is a bit strange but I’ll be okay tomorrow” and then, the following day, I still had quite a bad headache so I thought it was a bit strange. Yeah, that was what happened, really.
[0:03:07.7] BP: Yes. Everyone’s injuries are so different and I think it’s important to mention them because we always expect really traumatic things where a lot of the time, it’s not anything really extreme that happened that caused the concussion.
How did it feel after considering you’d be originally thought that you would feel fine in a day, so how did that feel a few months later knowing that things didn’t go back to what you thought they would.
[0:03:37.9] CS: Quite frustrating, really to be fair. Because I thought it was after a week, I was like, “I’m still not right but I’m sure I’ll be fine in a few days” and then it was just weeks after weeks after week, it was more frustrating, really. It was just, “When this is pain and uncomfortableness going to go away?” Yeah, I think it was mainly frustration and probably a bit of anger and thinking back, I was like, “Well, why didn’t I lock the door properly?” or “Why did I do that silly exercise” or “Why didn’t I think about it?” or yeah, probably just anger and frustration, really.
[0:04:15.8] BP: I think they’re really common. I know I dealt with a lot of frustration and a lot of anger at myself for not taking breaks when I probably should have, especially as an athlete. I probably should have let my brain rest instead of kept pushing and there’s days when I used to wonder all the time, “Well what if I didn’t push myself so hard? Would I still be where I am now?” kind of thing. It takes some times to get over that, I am over it now but those “What if” or “Why didn’t I do this, why did I do it differently today” or “What if I walked down the street instead of that one?”
All these little things that could have put you in a different place at a different time but we can’t change those things and sometimes it takes time to get over them. What if you try to help since your concussion injury, what helped you in your recovery?
[0:05:06.0] CS: I tried quite a few things to be fair so I was – I didn’t – well, I’ve seen a doctor but I saw a few doctors, well, kind of soon after the injury and I was tried in like quite a few different meds to begin with. I’ve tried about four or five different meds from two different doctors, which none of them have really helped and I think I’m on my fifth med now, which none of them have really made any kind of impact.
I tried a bit of physiotherapy, I feel like my head and my neck, that didn’t really help much. I was sent to a concussion clinic and they gave me some eye exercises to strengthen my eyes. That helped a little bit but hasn’t really done much since. What else have I tried? I’ve tried the good old rest.
[0:06:03.8] BP: Yeah.
[0:06:04.8] CS: Then, most recently, I’ve been seeing an osteopath who has done some normal osteopathy and some cranial osteopathy. I’ve also had two different types of acupuncture, both some Chinese type acupuncture and some normal acupuncture. Some in my head, some down my back and some all over my body. Yeah.
[0:06:30.3] BP: How did it feel to have acupuncture done in your head? I know I’ve had it done.
[0:06:34.9] CS: It’s very strange.
[0:06:36.6] BP: It’s strange? Yeah, I always like to ask because I was really nervous, it wasn’t really – they don’t hurt or anything. It’s just, “Okay, if I move, this is not going to be fun” because there’s all these little needles in me.
[0:06:49.5] CS: Yeah, odd.
[0:06:50.8] BP: Yeah, it is odd. How is the concussion rehab clinic, what did you do there?
[0:06:57.0] CS: The first time I went, I had like a five-hour long appointment where I was seen by an ophthalmologist to begin with to check out my eyes, then I was seen by a doctor and we just went through all of the symptoms and kind of problems I’d been experiencing since the accident.
Then, I was seen by a neuropsychologist to see if I kind of – if I had any cognitive impairments or any kind of psychological issues and then I had an MRI and then I had my bloods taken and then that’s where they gave me kind of some DI exercises to do and I was also given – is it the buffalo or “gruffalo” test onn.
[0:07:44.6] BP: Buffalo.
[0:07:45.6] CS: Buffalo, I did on a kind of standstill bike at the gym.
[0:07:52.0] BP: Well, I’m glad you tried a few things there but you didn’t stay there, right? Because you’re only there for a little while, concussion rehab can take a quite a long time sometimes.
[0:08:02.9] CS: Yeah.
[0:08:03.3] BP: Is there a reason why you stopped there and switched or what was behind that?
[0:08:09.0] CS: It’s only a place that you go for appointments every so often so they don’t – it’s not like a full day thing. They only see you and then discuss what your rehab is kind of outside of there.
[0:08:23.8] BP: Okay.
[0:08:24.9] CS: It’s only like an appointment place, they don’t see for the full. It’s not like the one I’ve heard of in America, is it the one place in Utah where you go and spend like a few full days there.
[0:08:36.6] BP: Yeah, there’s so many different types of therapy, there’s every week where you go once a month, where you see them every three months, where you do maybe an intense week to start off, those are starting to get really popular in the last few years and they’re hoping that that kind of kickstarts your brain improvement. Out of all of the things you’ve tried, what do you think’s helped best so far?
[0:09:03.6] CS: I’d probably say, seeing an osteopath has helped quite a lot because I had a lot of kind of tension and compression on all of my muscles down at the base of my skull and down my neck from untreated whiplash, which I didn’t really realize was contributing to a lot of my headaches. Releasing all of those aches and pains has helped with some of my headaches, so that’s really helped some of my headaches.
Giving myself time to understand it really, I think has helped me, understand that it’s not going to be a quick fix because for so long, I was thinking, “Oh, I’ll be okay and next week or I’ll be okay next month.” Part of that I think, I know that it’s not going to be tomorrow that I’m going to wake up and feel absolutely fine, whereas before, I was hoping that that might be the case.
[0:09:59.6] BP: Yeah.
[0:09:59.7] CS: Whereas I know that’s not the case.
[0:10:02.3] BP: I still feel like that some days. I told, when, just before we were recording this, I was in the hospital and I told my mom when I was there, “I don’t really want to be here” every time I come, I think, “Maybe it will just be a miracle, maybe they’ll have found something, maybe I’ll see a different doctor who knows something that nobody else knows” and it’s funny.
[0:10:26.3] CS: Exactly.
[0:10:26.1] BP: It can get your hopes up but I, once in a while, like maybe. It’s important to be able to change your mindset about a lot of that, especially once you realize that you are experiencing prolonged concussion symptoms, you have post-concussion syndrome, this isn’t an overnight fix type thing and it’s important to be able to change your mindset, not to get so upset because I think that added stress about not getting better can be really hard to handle and definitely exasperate all of your symptoms and so you said, the osteopath helped a lot. Can you explain a little bit if you don’t mind, what the osteopath does? Because I think a few people haven’t seen them.
[0:11:08.2] CS: Yeah, the osteopath does a lot of manipulation techniques on my back and my head and then it does quite a bit of cranial osteopathy, which to be honest, I don’t really know exactly what it is, what they’re doing.
[0:11:19.5] BP: What they’re doing? Is it like lots of pulling and things? I’ve been to a few osteopaths and they put their hands in my mouth once with gloves on, of course, to like stretch? That’s a weird thing.
[0:11:34.7] CS: Yeah and does a few stretches in my head and my neck and it doesn’t really relieve my head because my main symptom is my headache but it relieves lots of the tension around kind of my shoulder and neck area because I find myself, because my head hurts, I shrug, I kind of protect my head by shrugging my shoulders so it keeps me and my neck in a better place, really. It doesn’t really, it doesn’t help the headache as such but it helps my neck and be in a better place so that I don’t have even worse problems by shrugging my shoulders so much.
[0:12:10.2] BP: It’s actually really common, it’s like – like you’re protecting yourself when you have headaches. A lot of people tend to have a lot of attention in their shoulders and in their neck because your shoulders rise up and you’re creating tension but, in your head, you’re protecting your head and it’s kind of like when you’re really cold outside and you’re shivering.
[0:12:31.5] CS: Yeah, exactly.
[0:12:32.1] BP: It’s that sort of tension and it’s really common in a lot of – around a lot of injuries if someone hurts their foot around their knee, you start to compensate a little bit for that injury and sometimes that compensation, maybe walking a little differently, adjusting yourself a little differently when you sit for a back injury. Those types of things actually create other tension and more problems in other places.
I really like that you mentioned that but you’ve mentioned a few things so far and we are going to talk a little bit about going through this, being invisible and exercising, things like that but before that, we’re going to take a quick break.
[BREAK]
[0:13:15.2] BP: If you follow us on social media, you may have seen a few post about Concussion Connect, a place where everyone related to the concussion and brain injury community. We understand the need for a safe place to go separate from your regular social world, less overwhelming and more personal. Join Concussion Connect to have a place to share and get support along your survivor journey. Get access to our weekly support groups and keep connected with members through a personalized and secured chat.
Though a place for survivors, we also welcome all loved ones and professionals who are out to learn more about this invisible injury. Go to concussionconnect.com or find the link in our episode description today. I can’t wait to connect with you all.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:14:09.0] BP: Welcome back to The Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige and today’s guest, Clara Silcock. I wanted to get a little bit into exercise because that’s actually how you sustained your injury and I know you are quite passionate about it, so can you talk a little bit about are you able to exercise now. If you are, what are you able to do?
[0:14:31.9] CS: I am not really exercising at all at the moment. To begin with, I could barely walk much after I first had the accident. I found walking very difficult. I just had absolutely no energy but I have built that back up and I am now able to walk as much as I want but that is really kind of the only exercise I can do. I built up the Buffalo Test to go on the bike, so I can cycle but just very, very gently but that’s it really.
Anything that puts my heart rate up makes my headache quite a lot worst and my headache goes from like my normal dull headache to quite a pounding headache if my heart rate goes up much higher and I kind of get even more frustrated if I just do something that’s really gentle because I am so used to doing exercise that gets my heart rate quite high and I like to sweat a lot, so if I am just doing something that’s really gentle I just get frustrated that I am not working really hard, if that makes any sense.
[0:15:34.7] BP: It does makes sense. It’s like I can’t casually ride horses, sometimes doing things casually or at a lower level is really hard mentally when you know you used to be able to do it to maybe a very intense level before that. I know it is common. I’ve definitely experienced it but that energy level, you have been able to increase that, which is really nice because extreme fatigue is really common with head injuries and brain injuries and it can be really tough to deal with.
I know for a while especially because you experienced headaches, I could sleep all day every day and still be tired after. It would take a lot out of me, I’d go do something for a day and maybe push myself and then I could just sleep and sleep and sleep all day all night and not really notice and then things like mental health kick in, depression and things, which definitely also adds to fatigue and staying in bed increases depression.
It’s definitely kind of a conundrum where they are both fighting each other. You have a brain injury where you want to sleep all day and you don’t want to deal with extreme mental health issues but staying in bed all day increases them. It can be really challenging to deal with and so what do you believe the biggest challenge that you’ve dealt with through all of this has been?
[0:17:01.9] CS: I think one of the biggest challenge is just being in pain and being so uncomfortable and just being frustrated so much. I think I’ve never been a very emotional person at all in my life and I think it was a shock than being such an emotional person and just finding myself crying over being so frustrated and being in pain and being uncomfortable. I found it really difficult feeling guilty because I was off sick from work.
I’ve never really taken – I have taken maybe like one day off sick from work in the past six years I have been working, so then being off work for late I was like – I felt really guilty for not being in but also not really knowing why I was off work to begin with. I just didn’t feel right but to begin with when I didn’t really have a reasonable – not that I didn’t have a reason but when I was trying to figure out what was wrong but the doctors didn’t really know what was wrong and I couldn’t really get any help from the doctors because it took me a while to get help.
I think that’s what the challenges have been and I think the challenges for me of being trying to get the right help from the right people and I’ve had to really persevere from doctors and you know, pay for certain things and when you’re almost paying for things that you don’t really know if it’s going to help or benefit, I’m like, “Hmm” I know I have to pay anything for my own health but when you don’t really know if it’s going to work or not, it’s hard to keep putting money on a problem and not know if it’s going to benefit you in the end.
[0:18:40.7] BP: Yeah, that is something actually that Sylvie, she was on the podcast a few, I guess a month plus ago now and I talked about that. It is really hard especially once you’ve started the therapy and you are not sure it’s working and you are paying for it and it’s like, “Is this worth it? I am not seeing any benefit but I am paying for this out of pocket” and it’s really challenging that way with a lot of this.
The emotions are really tough, I know I had a lot of rage and a lot of anger and it can be really tough to handle those especially if you weren’t an emotional person before. It’s like you flipped the switch and now, you have lack of control of emotions that you didn’t really have a ton of before and that can be really hard. I like that you mention that uncomfortableness and I think that’s what a lot of it is, is when you are dealing with things like headaches and head pain, you don’t get to really relax.
[0:19:39.9] CS: No.
[0:19:40.3] BP: I think that adds to the fatigue and I know now, I mentioned it to a friend actually a few months ago that for the first time ever I felt like I was able to relax and then I stress out and I was laughing and I was like, “It’s because I’ve spent years being unable to do that” this was one of the first summers where I was able to just kind of breathe a little bit. I didn’t have headaches every day, I didn’t have a lot of flare ups and I could breathe. I was able to relax and then I would stress out because I was like –
[0:20:18.6] CS: Where has it gone?
[0:20:19.5] BP: This isn’t normal like wow, I am not used to this. I am not used to not having headaches. I am not used to being able to just breathe and actually not have tension in my body and that uncomfortableness I lived with for years and it could take a long time to get out of that and it can take a really big toll on you especially emotionally and are you able to work right now?
[0:20:44.7] CS: Yeah, a little bit. I work in quite a busy hospital and a busy team, so I went back to work like about three or four months after the initial injury and was doing a bit of part-time work but then I did a few months and then I had a complete burnout and made myself a little bit worst because I think I have done too much too quickly and was sent home from work by my doctors because I just made things worse.
I had a few months back off work completely and then since Christmas time, I’ve been back in work but just doing half days a few days a week, so I am back in like three or four days a week but just for a maximum of four hours, so just part time but my boss has been so understanding, which has been extremely helpful.
[0:21:35.5] BP: Yeah, it can make a really big difference when they do understand what you are going through and burnout is really common. I did it last week, I completely burnt myself out and I did kind of reassess what I’m doing, doing a little bit too much, taking a step back from some things and going, “Okay, I pushed myself too hard. Now let’s readapt what can I do to get back to where I was before and carry on from there.”
It’s really nice, I am really glad that your boss is understanding because something you actually mentioned to me when we talked beforehand was that this is invisible and one of the tough things about it being invisible is a lot of the times people say, “Oh you look great, you look so good. You know, you’re doing great” and in reality, you’re really not doing that well.
You know, one of the tough things and I am glad that your boss is so good about it is that this is invisible and I know when we talk beforehand, something you mentioned was a lot of people would say, “You look so good, you look great, you look like you’re doing really well” and in reality, you’re really not but that’s not what they can see, so how has that been for you?
[0:22:51.7] CS: At times really difficult because there’s so many people have come up to me and be like, “Oh, you’re looking really well. You look like you’re getting on really well, you are recovering really well” and then like, “Oh, you look so much better than you did X many months ago when I last saw you” and I always wish I could say, “Yeah, I feel so much better” but I really don’t and yeah, I know that I’ve made so much.
I’ve made steps forward from yeah, when I probably last saw them X many months ago because you know, I might be walking a little bit more or I’ve come back to work for like an extra day or I have that few hours extra energy than I used to but you know the headaches don’t. It’s still there and I still get really fatigued but yeah, it’s completely invisible and like you said, it’s you know, I might look completely fine on the outside but there’s still struggles.
It is just learning to cope with your struggles and I am probably coping better with those struggles but you know, the same struggles are still there. I am just probably coping with them better.
[0:24:01.6] BP: I think that’s a good way to put it. A lot of the time, you just get better at it. You get better at being ill. You get better at being ill as sad as it is but it’s the truth. You just get better at handling what you are going through the longer you go through it and sometimes, there is a lot of dips in that but –
[0:24:21.0] CS: Yeah.
[0:24:21.5] BP: You do start to kind of adapt and readjust to that, “Okay, this is my life right now and I am working to get better but I can kind of manage the way I am managing these symptoms and I think it’s really important to be able to do that because of how long of a road this can be. You know there is some people where within a year, within a few months, within a few weeks they feel better and that’s amazing and then there is a few people, well, a lot of people out there but percentage wise, it’s not that many who deal with these for years.
Sometimes that’s just the reality of the injury of concussions and brain injuries and so you have touched on a lot of great things like changing your mindset and dealing with that uncomfortableness and emotions and many things like that, so is there anything else you would like to add before ending today’s episode?
[0:25:17.3] CS: No, I don’t think so.
[0:25:19.1] BP: That’s all good with me. Well, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing some of your life story post-concussion.
[0:25:27.4] CS: It’s okay, thank you very much for having me.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:25:35.1] BP: Support the podcast, if you truly love the podcast, please consider supporting us through our tip jar. Find the “support the podcast” link in our episode description. All tips are greatly appreciated.
Has your life been affected by concussions? Join our podcast by getting in touch. Thank you so much for listening to The Post Concussion Podcast and be sure to help us educate the world about the reality of concussion by giving us a share and to learn more, don’t forget to subscribe.
[END]
OTHER CONTENT YOU MAY LIKE
