mTBI (concussion) fallout, and feeling crappy about it

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Hello all. Here I am with my whopping 200 posts saying, "Need a little help here." So, in advance, thanks for listening. I'll try to keep it short. Well, sort of short.

The background: This part could go on forever, but suffice it to say that my story is made up of parts of your stories. There's lots of pain and frustration there, but I've been able to emotionally move beyond most of it. I'm a strong and smart person, but wow, AS, ADHD, and Bipolar II are quite a combination. I am very fortunate to have good help.

The story: Five months ago I sustained an mTBI. It wasn't my first, but it was the first in a long time. I didn't think it was that big of a deal; although recovery was going very slowly, it was moving along. Then, BANG. The bottom dropped out. As it happens, there is a thing called post-concussive syndrome, and if you are unlucky, you get it. I got it.

The symptoms: Extreme fatigue, sleep disturbances, emotional volatility, cognitive impairments... you get the idea. I could bore you all with the gory details of my particular case, but I won't.

The timeline: It's been five months. Full recovery, if it happens at all, could take another several months. Yes, there's progress, sometimes. Yes, certain things are better than they were. But this sucks. I haven't been able to work much, so I stand to lose my health insurance if not my job. Recovery is anything but predictable or linear.

The whining: I want my brain back. It was highly enough flawed *before* this happened, but I could work with it. I want to sleep through the night, I want to be not a complete dolt at work, I want to quit flying into irrational rages. I want to not be sucked into the pit of despair like I was a week ago. I've been depressed and suicidal before in my life, but this felt different in a very sinister way. It wasn't good.

Anyway, I'm done rambling for now. Thanks for listening.

I'm very sorry to hear that you're suffering in this particular way. I think it gets to me because I'm (in a daft way) rather proud of my brain and my thinking ability. Hope your recovery is faster rather than slower.

I wish you a speedy recovery. You seem to have made a lot of progress so far. Things can only get better. If you need to talk to us about it some more, we're always here to help and listen. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Thanks, you two.

It's been five months. I really thought I'd be "all better" long before this.

I appreciate the encouragement.

Damn, I hear you. I fell on the rocks while I was on vacation in August and had a concussion back then (just over six months ago) and still not totally back to normal. Not as bad off as you are, thankfully, but still sleeping a lot more than usual, migraines much worse than normal for me (had to increase my migraine medications A LOT), and also needed an increase in ADHD meds. It sucks. I wish you a speedy recovery...I totally get where you're coming from!

~Kate

I don't really know what to say, I've been there, and I know how it feels.... the best advice I can give you is to be patient, I know that probably isn't what you want to hear, but it's all you can really do. It'll go away, or, at least it did for me. and probably will for you as well, it's just going to take some time.


in the mean time, try and take steps to relieve your symptoms, have you ever tried taking Melatonin? you can get it at the drug store and it should help you sleep, if you can get to where you are sleeping well again the other problems with probably fade some.


Keep you chin up and hope for the best, that's all anyone can do.

I'm sorry this happened to you

I wish you all well wishes!

Oh, that's real bad.
I have read about TBI and it just sounds really bad.
I hope you can recover more.
Best luck to you!

Thanks, guys.

Meow101, that's very interesting. I also have required a large increase in my ADHD drugs.

I just can't believe how slow recovery is, and how many steps backward there are. This is more serious than I ever thought a concussion could be.