GG,

I'm just coming to this forum for the first time but I saw your thread and had to respond because I went through pretty much EXACTLY the same thing. I hit my head on a rock after a (rather serious) fall and went largely undiagnosed - after the ER visit and a normal CT scan, I was told I had a concussion and released. I never followed up and thought it was no big deal because this was back in 2007 and concussions weren't taken nearly as seriously as they are now.

At this time I was taking temazepam almost every night, prescribed to me for insomnia. I didn't notice any major changes right after the injury, besides some vertigo. But over the next few months, as I began my sophomore year in college, my cognitive function declined rapidly, to the point where I couldn't comprehend anything I was reading, my memory and attention span steadily worsened, and my reality slowly faded out. It took me a long time to realize what was happening, as I was too out of it to see how out of it I was. I was also drinking a fair amount of liquor that year which I'm sure made things much worse.

By the end of the school year the DP/DR were so severe I had no sense at all of reality or who I was anymore, and I could barely make it through my classes. When I realized what was happening I blamed the benzos and quit them cold turkey, which was a terrible mistake, as I went from total numbness to constant abject terror. But that's another story, as you weren't on benzos long enough to be dealing with withdrawal symptoms it seems. But I can confirm that I had the same experience - I got much, much worse after the initial injury while taking benzos, and had pretty much the same symptoms you describe. I am certain the benzos were a factor in my case.

It's been almost 10 years since this all went down, and I am only now finally pulling myself out of it (I'm also dealing with PCS from a concussion 3 years ago, but the cognitive issues haven't changed much due to that injury). I'll tell you exactly what's helped me, and hope that it will help you recover much, much faster than I did. I know what an incomprehensible hell it can be.

First off, I assume that you're avoiding alcohol? 9 years out I still can't handle even a sip of alcohol without my brain essentially shutting down, getting sloppy drunk, even blacking out after a beer or two. Cutting it out completely was essential to beginning to recover.

Secondly, how's your diet? I may or may not have had food sensitivities before the injury, but if so they never affected my brain. After the injury, a wide array of foods started giving me extreme brain fog that made the DP/DR, memory loss, and other cognitive issues much, much worse. I've read that the blood-brain barrier can be compromised in a brain injury, which is my theory as to why. Either way, the only way I'm able to function at all, even now, is on a strict paleo diet. When I eat clean my cognitive state is manageable. If I go even a few days eating anything pro-inflammatory, all the cognitive problems come back with a vengeance. Even in someone without specific food sensitivities, eating as healthy as possible makes a huge difference for brain health. Eating a diet high in (good) fat has been a game changer for me.

Next, I recently went through vision therapy with a therapist experienced in treating TBIs. I don't think I could have recovered without it. I was experiencing the same thing you mentioned in your other thread, the maddening feeling of seeing everything fine but being unable to process it. The VT helped a lot with my ability to read, process visual stimuli, etc. Apparently I'd had a focal and convergence insufficiency for years due to the injury, and repairing that has taken a huge load off of my brain and helped a lot with the cognitive fatigue I've also struggled with. Insurance doesn't generally cover vision therapy, at least here in Ohio, so it wound up costing about $1500 out of pocket, in total. So it wasn't cheap, but it was essential.

HOWEVER, the vision therapy was only half of the picture. The intervention that has helped me by FAR the most has been neurofeedback. I started out getting LENS therapy a couple years ago for the PCS from the more recent injury. It helped a lot with the pain and other symptoms, but I also noticed that it was helping with the cognitive problems lingering from the first injury as well. I was doing sessions once or twice a week, and it was slowly turning me into a human being with thoughts and emotions and an identity again.

When I had to move and no longer had a LENS practitioner nearby, I discovered NeurOptimal, and was surprised to find that it helped even more. I've had 15 or so NeurOptimal sessions now, and I can hardly believe how much of a difference it's made. I don't feel back to who I was pre-injury yet by any stretch, but I'm still improving with every session, and I can honestly say for the first time in almost a decade that I fundamentally feel like a human being again and my world and life feel like they exist.

Given your location in Cali I'm guessing you have a lot of neurofeedback practitioners around. I would recommend going with one of the newer forms of neurofeedback, like LENS or (especially) NeurOptimal, over the more traditional kinds as I strongly believe the newer ones are more effective for this sort of problem. Both of these newer versions are passive; the machine does the work for you and basically teaches the brain how to get out of the patterns it's been stuck in since getting injured. For me this has pretty much been the miracle I've been searching for every day for all these years. Every week my perception gets clearer, my comprehension gets deeper, and dormant parts of my psyche come back to life.

I've also tried many dozens of different supplements, therapies, etc. over the years. A high quality fish oil and vitamin D are crucial in my opinion, and I've also had some success with various other supplements if you're interested, especially ashwagandha for anxiety.

I really hope this is helpful. There's a lot more I could say but this is already pretty long. Let me know if you have any questions at all. It doesn't sound like you dug yourself into nearly as deep a hole as I did, so hopefully your way out will be much shorter.