Hello,

About 4 months ago, I fell down a flight of stairs which were made of cinderblock and was knocked out cold, hitting the front of my head which caused me to pass out completely. I remember falling and the feeling of hitting my head only. I don't know how long I was unconscious because I was alone, and after a while, someone found me, and I don't know who it was or if I was awake or not. I was totally delirious although talking, rambling as I understand, but eloquently so, and have little memory of the next six to eight hours, although I was taken by ambulance to the hospital for a CT scan to see if I had a fractured skull. I did not, so they took me out of the trauma unit. The hospital said I had a moderate concussion and treated it with ice. My head had a goose egg on it that was the size of an orange, so it was impossible to miss where I hit my head. I only barely remember being in the hospital or driving home (they said it was fine to drive home, which amazes me since I was severely mentally altered and dazed, like if you drank a few bottles of wine).

I went home and was intensely drowsy for days and days, and I couldn't think clearly at all. My concentration was horrible, so I could not read or follow the plot of a film. I felt out of it. No headaches or dizziness or anything else. I slept 16 hours a day for about a week, taking off work. I felt dull-witted.

Then I had to go back to work, and my work is cerebral and requires tons of thinking, and I had a hard time with it. Now, four months later, I feel very strange all the time mentally, and my thoughts feel like they're blank, and I am always out of it, and I lose track of time constantly, and I still cannot read because I space out, and I have stopped socializing because it's too complicated to follow conversation, and I still have trouble following the plot of a movie. I'm also still drowsy and sleep about 12 hours a night. I feel apathetic and stay home all of the time. I was going to go to Italy for a holiday but cancelled my trip because it sounded complicated and not like fun to me. I spent my holiday lying on the couch. I'm also staring into outer space a lot and having trouble not doing this. No headaches or dizziness.

I went to the neurologist, had a check-up, and the neurologist said I was fine and that I was depressed, which makes no sense since this started when I had the concussion, like that day. He put me on Celexa which didn't help even a little bit. That was two months ago. I want to quit it because it feels like I'm taking a sugar pill. No one told me about post-concussion syndrome either; I found it on Google and am wondering if that's what's going on.

I just feel stupid, really stupid, and really slow, and I normally am very sharp. I've been taking B-12 and fish oil but not seeing any change. Is there anything else I should be doing? Is this permanent? I can't do my job very well since it requires thinking, and I now feel like I'm demented or something. The thoughts just don't connect. Also, my time management used to be great but is now horrible, and I'm having trouble multi-tasking. I've tried drinking coffee too but that didn't help.

My husband says I no longer get jokes, and he is pretty worried about me. It's hard to do household things, like cook, which I'm good at but now they are very complicated and overwhelming. My job is teaching high school, so this is alarming. I don't know what to do but the neurologist is the only one here that my insurance covers, and he thought it was psychiatric even though he did not do any tests and I have no psychiatric history and this started with the concussion, literally that moment, I started to have these problems, and they subsided to a degree but not completely.