Alex Willms is a professional skateboarder who fell in love with skateboarding at age 10. Alex’s life took a new path after several concussions, which led to persistent post-concussion symptoms (PPCS) and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). He shares his Inspiring Story to give hope and offer ideas to others experiencing similar challenges in their own recovery.
My name is Alex Willms, and I’m a 26-year-old skateboarder from San Diego. I’ve sustained more than 20 concussions in my life, which have affected me in different ways. I still struggle with my recovery, but I’ve decided to share my experience because I know there are a lot of other people out there suffering.
For me, each concussion led to the next.
My first TBI was in 2004, when I was 6 years old. The impact was on my forehead, and I lost consciousness for about four hours. I was discharged from the ER the next day with instructions to rest and was told everything would be fine in 1-2 weeks.
As a child, I dismissed the event as soon as the pain subsided, which took about a week. The ongoing effects were much more subtle. There were many other difficulties in my life that I didn’t connect to this early TBI until two decades later.
After the brain injury, my left eye began shifting inward and has been like that ever since. I also experienced difficulties with speaking and social withdrawal. The worst were the symptoms of executive dysfunction: impulsivity, emotional reactivity, difficulty making decisions, and more.
But the most frightening thing I have learned is how a history of previous concussions, especially in childhood, can increase the risk of developing concussions in the future.
Seven years after my initial injury, I started having severe migraines. They’d last up to 11 hours and could take two weeks to recover from. I lived in fear of these migraines my whole adolescent life, so I wore a helmet while skating for a long time.
Skateboarding was always my first love. My neurological issues bled into all aspects of my life, including what I care about most.
Most of introductory skateboarding is learning how to fall. This includes adopting habits that help avoid whiplash and blows to the head. Without realizing it, I learned not to concern myself with these strategies, thinking a helmet would protect me. I picked up some additional concussions in my teenage years — with a helmet on — because of this.
Around 2015, at age 17, the migraines dissipated. Thinking they were gone for good, I stopped wearing a helmet with hopes to pursue a career in professional skateboarding. However, my patterns of letting my head hit the ground didn’t disappear.
In 2018, I sustained my second life-changing TBI. While I have no memory of the day, I’ve seen footage and heard from friends that my left temple struck the ground from a high impact, causing a grand mal seizure. The paramedics took me to the hospital, where I was put into a coma for about 15 hours. I woke up with no conception of reality, but things slowly started to return to normal. I got back on my skateboard one month later, a dangerously short amount of time.
After this TBI, my mental reality gradually collapsed. I couldn’t calm down around other people. Speaking felt impossible. When I tried to talk, the words that came out always felt like the wrong ones. I became withdrawn.
My personality changed. In the months and years that followed, my communication and relationships deteriorated. It was hard watching my friends get confused or angry with me. But what hurt the most was seeing them come to accept I was now different, before I was able to do so myself.
Concussions play dirty, in that your specific struggles before the impact can be the first to worsen after it. My growing instability blended so seamlessly with my insecurities before the accident. My newly heightened emotions felt more natural than ever; I didn’t realize they were stemming from cognitive impairments.
I felt physically unaffected, and in my fractured mind, that meant I could skate —I needed to skate. Skateboarding can be very healing when it comes to emotionally traumatic events.
Two months after the 2018 TBI, I suffered a concussion that left me delirious, briefly unsure of what month it was, and bleeding from the face and chin. For the next few years, the frequency of concussive incidents increased drastically.
I believe the 2018 TBI served as the root of this spike, as I never fully recovered before sustaining additional injuries. Continuing to skate aggressively during this time likely fueled my struggles, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I wanted to keep skateboarding in an impulsive, unbalanced way. It was all I had to take me away from what was going on inside my mind.
In April 2023, I sustained another TBI after my right temple struck the side of a stair with a lot of force. This one finally pushed me over the edge, leaving me with disabling physical symptoms. Ultimately, I ended up pushing myself too hard too soon after the impact.
I developed postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) in addition to persistent post-concussion symptoms (PPCS). POTS is a form of dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. My worst symptoms are shortness of breath, chest pains, chronic fatigue, presyncope, insomnia, and gut pain. In addition to this, I was suffering from the effects of PPCS, which included headaches, eye strain, photophobia, and more.
The first few months were devastating as I transitioned into a disabled lifestyle. It was heartbreaking not being able to skateboard anymore. I couldn’t exercise without nearly fainting. I never truly understood chronic pain until this injury. As the months went by and my ability to walk, talk, and think seemed to be growing worse, I began having panic attacks, frightened by the uncertainty of whether I was going to live through this or not.
After spending most of my time in a dark room with closed windows, I also tested positive for mold poisoning, which only exacerbated my concussion symptoms. Since moving to a cleaner environment, my recovery has accelerated.
It’s been 21 months since my 2023 TBI, and a lot of my symptoms have improved. I’m learning to stop pushing through the pain. While I still experience chronic pain in the evenings, my quality of life has improved a great deal. I’m walking 5-8 miles daily, writing a lot, and growing closer to my best friends.
What’s interesting is how such a destructive injury tends to course correct many unhealthy habits. If you stare at screens for too long, the sensitivity to light will keep you off your phone and in the present. If you eat too much junk food or drink too much alcohol, the resulting pain will push you to improve your diet. Using pain as a cue like this makes the whole process a lot more purposeful. It’s how you learn.
While I still run into setbacks, I’ve learned a lot of adaptive strategies that have helped in my recovery. It’s normal to run into these complications. With each one, you learn a little bit more about how to check yourself. After a flare, it seems very convincing that all your progress is lost. It is not.
Doors of opportunity may close after a brain injury. There might be some you can reopen in time. In exchange for the lost doors, new ones will open in their place.
I’ve pledged my brain to the UNITE Brain Bank so my loved ones will someday know if I had CTE. The possibility of CTE is a painful one that surfaces often. I try to cope by staying disciplined through living healthy and staying focused. If this is something you struggle with, I find it helpful to remember that being a living example of what this process is like — as frightening as it may be — could help others understand, prevent, and survive this disease in the future.
Some practices I’ve found most effective are meditation, diaphragmatic breathing, physical therapy, acupuncture, ocular exercises, diet and supplementation, hydration with electrolytes, cold water exposure, and listening to audiobooks.
To cope with PPCS, finding a specialized concussion clinic is essential. The CLF HelpLine can help you find one, as they did for me.
I’ve also found it very helpful to get in contact with others who have experienced TBI. CLF has a peer support program you can learn more about here.
There are people out there who understand brain trauma and its physical and emotional ramifications. It’s crucial to open up about your situation to people you trust. Seeking support from caring friends and family can change the trajectory of your recovery.
Faith is at the heart of recovery. It is the bottom of the pyramid. The more you instill hope and excitement for your future, the easier your symptoms will be to manage. Paying attention to potential lessons from the present struggle directs you towards a better path. After enough practice at this, making healthy, impactful decisions becomes a system that runs itself.
If your concussion symptoms persist longer than a month, you may have Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS). Learn about PCS and what you should do if you are concerned you or a love one may have it.
Living with PCS can be hard. Find out how to cope with persistent post-concussion symptoms from medical experts and others who have experienced PCS.