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A metallic taste in your mouth after hitting your head hard can be caused by a disruption in nerve signals to your taste buds, often due to a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which can affect your sense of taste and smell; this is sometimes accompanied by other symptoms like headaches, dizziness, and confusion; if you experience this after a head injury, it's important to seek medical attention to rule out any serious complications like a cerebrospinal fluid leak.

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RunTheJulz · 46-50, F

@AdaXI I’m very glad that you woke up after such an awful experience. I had a non sports related severe concussion in college when I was just doing my job at the dorm I was working as an RA (resident advisor). It was my sophomore year and my dad actually found me a great spot to live as I ended up in the worst dorm on campus in my freshman year. We had more people kicked out of the university housing system due to drugs using and selling. The weekend that’s designated “parents weekend” was so embarrassing as there were almost 10 piles of barf in the hall that I was living in. None of them mine at least. So my dad found out that this private dorm existed and he found out that I could get $600 dollars a month taken off my rent if I wanted to work as an RA. I was one of 4 students doing so. I was the youngest one and we had only a few duties. Between the 4 of us we each had to do the dishes after a meal and we split it up pretty fairly. I didn’t mind doing the dishes and I think it was actually just the ones after the dinner hour as we had 3-4 kitchen staff that did the cooking. It was intended to start on the dishes about half an hour before the end of dinner but technically they just had to be done before breakfast and I explored this technicality extensively. I rarely ate anything from the dorm anyway as I spent most of my time with friends who were living off campus. We rarely went to class we had big dinners together and we did our part to uphold the school’s reputation as the biggest stoner party school in the country. It wasn’t easy we had tough competition from UC Berkeley and Humboldt State in Northern California but we flattened every other school in the state we even had a barter economy with Reed College in Portland Oregon for the best LSD in exchange for the best cannabis.
Anyway I was having a decent day and I had been given my first doses and a bottle of cannabis tincture which was very strong and made the bong hits smoother but it was made with Everclear so just a little bit went a long way. I had to get my dishes done so by about 1am I was back at my private dorm in the kitchen with my music playing. I always saved the garbage duty for my last chore. I had keys to the back door as well as the front doors and to the kitchen and when I would take the trash bag from the can I had to unlock a secure dumpster to put the trash in. I remember dropping the lock to the dumpster and I actually caught it like a hackie-sack on my foot. I was in a precarious position but I was sure that I could bend down as I raised my foot and pick the lock off my shoe without having to take my other hand off the door to the dumpster. The trash bags are already in the dumpster. I just need to lock it up and I believe I had put the keys down in the kitchen when I got the last garbage bag. I bent over and went to grab the lock and the hand holding the dumpster door was in a splint because I had broken my wrist earlier that month snowboarding (it’s mid February) I didn’t realize that my hand had slipped off the dumpster door which opened outward as the dumpster was flush with the building in a little alcove because the building had a garbage chute for the upper floors.
I don’t remember the exact impact because it knocked me out cold at 1:30ish am in the alley next to the building and I don’t know how long I was unconscious for but I came to so confused that I forgot I had been cleaning the kitchen and I thought I was locked out of the front door of the building. We had a door that could be buzzed open by the residents as well as an intercom so I just buzzed another RA and they let me in. I went up to my room but I couldn’t get in so I then walked back down to the lobby to examine my aching head and I had been hit on the very top of my head with the dumpster door that had a ridge around it that had just opened up my scalp but I couldn’t see anything only feel it gently and I figured I needed some help so I closed up the kitchen and I got my keys and walked two blocks to one of my closest friends. It’s now after 2am easily and she’s been asleep for hours and most unfortunately she doesn’t have her car but I’m only 4 blocks away from the hospital that was starting to become aware of me due to my frequency of injuries. My friend was helpful enough to tell me that she couldn’t see anything due to too much blood and hair. She offered to walk with me to the Emergency but I told her that I would be fine and I decided to walk back to my dorm where I had another few bong rips as I thought about my next move. I’m only 6 blocks away from the hospital but I’m well aware that I can’t drive my car in the state I’m in. I was so tired and I was annoyed with my whole situation so I laid back onto my bed and fell asleep. I woke up after 9 am with a pillow that had soaked up blood 🩸 like a sponge. I know that I need medical attention but I don’t want to go to the hospital so I decided to go to the student health center. I downplayed everything and when the nurse saw my head after I removed my beanie I had been using to hide my damage she was shocked and told me that I needed to get to the ER as I was well beyond the capabilities of the student health center. I declined an ambulance and I walked across campus (a rarity for me lol ) and I even ran into my bf from my freshman year who was not too impressed by my head injury lol. When I got to the hospital I was seen by the neurologist who had treated me less than a month earlier for a very nasty head injury that almost cost me my right eye when I was speared by a tree branch while popping over a blind (no pun intended lol) part of the mountain next to a tree with a dead branch that I was unfortunately injured by because the snow that year was so deep due to an abnormal winter (El Nino) I was fortunate enough to be wearing a solid pair of goggles and so I had an incredibly painful and bruised eye and the branch had broken at the tip and deflected to my forehead which I had to get stitches for and I had to be watched for the remainder of the day at the resort. So the neurologist gave me the facts and told me I had to get a helmet 🪖 if I was going to continue with my goal of becoming a professional. When he saw me for my dumpster injury he told me that two concussions inside of a month wasn’t a good thing. Such a wise doctor lol. Of course I was more concerned about my hair than my health. The fact that I had let my scalp retract over the course of the night made it worse and they told me that it would not be easy to close the wound. I didn’t care I was adamant about not shaving my hair. They said that they would have to use staples which was a first for me lol. Not a pleasant experience either. I had to endure the pain of having two people close my scalp up. One had forceps and had to use them to keep my scalp together as the other one stapled away. I could hear the staples going into my scalp through my skull. I was fortunate enough to have only chipped some bone on my skull. The neurologist remarked on the fact that I had a rather hard head lol I was able to keep from having any of my hair shaved and I was released I think I was even given a bottle of Vicodin which I didn’t even touch because it was the general consensus of my friends that pharmaceuticals were “chemy” and bad. I had plenty of cannabis to keep me comfy. And that’s the the way I got two of what would become 4 severe concussions inside 4 months and by April I was unable to taste anything so I stopped eating. My fellow RAs as well as the kitchen staff were so concerned about me that they decided to have a conversation with me that was almost like an intervention. They had been doing my shifts of dishwashing and they understood and they were more worried about my health and safety and they all agreed that I should call my parents and tell them that I was doing so poorly and my parents agreed that I was not being safe and responsible and I should move back home to heal up. So I packed up my room which barely fit into my car and my dad mailed me a cell phone that he had from work and it took a few days to get synchronized with the time of day to undertake a long drive and I got on my way. I will never forget the feeling of failure when I got to the state line and I cried and I screamed alone in my car on the highway because I couldn’t believe that my reality was true. It took 9 months and a Rx for Prozac but I was able to get my missing weight back and by September I was already making plans to get my first place in the mountains and go full time into developing my professional snowboard career. I had been sponsored by a small shop in my college town and I had taken a second place in my first snowboard contest. By the time I got to full time focus on my snowboarding without school getting in my way lol it took me about two full seasons to be able to claim professional status and I had many more gruesome injuries and grueling experiences but such was life and I was happy.

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RunTheJulz · 46-50, F

@dubkebab I can’t express how grateful I am for your words right now and all the past ones too. I’m really struggling with my pain and my mental health is deteriorating like a toilet paper tank. I’m so stressed and scared about my future that I’m afraid I’m going into vaporlock.
I think I would have loved to meet your dad too. My parents are so strait laced and responsible that I feel like my mom’s overprotective nature was a proponent for my reckless abandon. I had a period in my childhood where I was not able to be the kind of athlete that I knew my dad was and it really made me push myself harder when I felt like I found something that I enjoyed. The freedom of doing what I loved in nature was a huge factor in going into non traditional sports because I had reached the limits of what I could do on a field and part of a team. Even when I was on teams I found ways to isolate and elevate myself and it made me realize how comfortable I could become at competing in everything from sports to fashion etc. it wasn’t that rare for my generation to be into sports and skateboarding and I grew up within pushing distance of a legendary skate shop although the skateparks were gone by the time I started my foray into 4 wheeled fun. I learned to surf at 12 because my friends mom was concerned that her daughter didn’t have enough friends and they were the same people who gave me an old snowboard to learn on so I could go on the school ski trip with all the cool kids and I was really bummed that I was starting later than most kids that I tried harder. I used the same formula that made me good at distance running and I just decided that I could and would tolerate more pain and will myself to my goal. And it worked. I never wanted to see any of the people from my past in the snowboard world and I got lucky because they got into other stuff and I was able to become the only person from my area and my social circle that did what I did. But it did come at a steep cost. I lost so many friends because I was too competitive and they got sick of everything being a competition. I tried not to care. I lost relationships because bfs were not too interested in being with someone who is not able to lose and at the same time not interested in being with someone who only saw me as one dimensional in the sense that I was supposed to be a status symbol because they “won” me over and they just wanted a gf who would cheer them on instead of being a partner and a competitor. I tried not to care. I never expected to see 30 like so many people say I never thought I would turn 40 and I was fortunate enough to not look my age so I could slip into groups of people of all ages and do my thing. Now I’m a 47 yo teenager who has no companions no compatriots and no family. As in no children so nobody has a life like mine and they can’t even relate to the fact that I don’t have to worry about anyone but myself (for now)
And my sister was always the jealous one because she felt like I had it all and everything came to me easily. I know my mother would never say it but she always felt like I was the one who would be most like her as well. My sister was even jealous of the fact that I had a baby whisperer quality and little kids would always have a fixation on me and now she has 3 children and she has the more well rounded and mature life. I’m happy for one thing when it comes to my pain and that is that I never have to worry about disappointing my own children because I can’t do something with them due to all my injuries and my pain syndrome. I knew that I had to be careful because of my meds and it was kids or meds and I really didn’t have any choice. I’m rambling now but I’m grateful for everything that you have done to inspire me educate me and help make my life suck a little less than it could. Thank you for being a fun and interesting person and friend from afar. I’m truly grateful to have crossed paths with you and I look forward to seeing how you enjoy my memoirs when everything is done and off to the publishers. ☺😊

dubkebab · 56-60, M

@RunTheJulz Well,it seems to me like the fuse is lit and this baby will go all skyrocket style at some point.
You have a really clear way of organizing thoughts and putting them forth along with experiences beyond the pale. Killer stuff.
I wonder if you can get with a writing group or workshop some stuff in a supportive setting,that's a good way to keep the wheels greasy. I also flashed that you should maybe read some Anne Lamott if you haven't already-especially 'bird by bird'.
[media=https://youtu.be/X41iulkRqZU?si=B7MXTGfk_PYRFJ4L]

RunTheJulz · 46-50, F

@dubkebab Great ideas and suggestions!! Thank you so much for sharing!! ☺😊

AdaXI · 41-45, T

When it happened to me I was so confused I didn't understand what the liquid coming outta my ears was or the metallic taste, I just felt sleepy went to bed, lolz😆

Like literally the worst thing you can do but yeah your decision making in them sorta situations can also be seriously impaired. In which case you've hopefully got someone with you that knows these things.
乂º _ º乂