I just found this forum and am hoping someone has experienced what I am (and know that I'm not going crazy).

In November, 2013, while walking outside a hospital, I felt dizzy and as I was reaching for the shelter surrounding a bench, I passed out and hit the sidewalk with the back of my head. Not sure how long I was out, but awoke laying on the sidewalk with people surrounding me. I was admitted to the hospital and it was determined I had a 6 cm gash on the back of my head and had a concussion. I was later told by a witness that I hit the sidewalk so hard she cringed. I spent seven days in the hospital.

Immediately following my hospital stay, I experienced dizziness for about three months. Two months later, I had a mild stroke (TIA) and was again hospitalized for a week. It seems the two events were related. I was put on several medications, metropolol and lisinipril. After about a month, the metropolol dosage was increased. Just about coinciding with the increase, I began to have strange, disjointed, disconcerting thoughts AS I was falling asleep. It's hard to describe, but I will try. In the period of drifting off to sleep, my mind would have a thought, say, I need to go to the grocery store tomorrow. The thought would not complete and would morph into something totally unrelated, say something like the man across the street bought a new car. Then that thought would not complete and morph into another totally unrelated thought, e.g., I need to refill my Starbucks card. This was terrifying. It got so I was afraid to go to sleep and was literally sobbing when I felt sleep coming on. I read up on the side effects of the medications I was on and found rare side effects for both that "could" fit what I was experiencing. My gp told me to go back to the lower dose of metropolol. That didn't help and the cardiologist told me to stop it completely. I read that it took about 3 days for the metropolol to leave my body. It's now been more than three weeks and while it's not as bad, it still occurs.

I was so scared, I began to wonder if this was the early signs of dementia or Altsheimer's. I read up on that and that fear seems unfounded. I also regularly have headaches and occasional dizziness. In November, it will be a year since I fell and hit my head.