Hi Marilee,
I am glad that you are finding the forum helpful but yet sorry that you have felt compelled to join by the fact that you haven't recovered after three months.
I am sure that you are right to treat you injuries as serious. Post-concussion symptoms are really horrible, especially in the first few months after an injury. I do hope that your symptoms become milder in time as indeed my own symptoms have done.
Your general symptoms sound very like post-concussion symptoms with the possible exception of what you asked about specifically, weakness on one side of the body and difficultly walking.
I myself have, like you, been dealing with terrible headaches, unbelievable fatigue, problems with balance, dizziness and disturbed sleep, foggy brain, as you have described.
However, I have not had any weakness or difficulty with the motor function of walking. I have had some minor oddities in walking due, I assume, to balance, in that it has felt at times difficult to walk in a straight line and I have the tendency to drift in one direction. This has now recovered, but in any case was not due to a difficulty in moving my legs.
So, I wonder whether it would be worth asking your neurologist about any injuries that you might have in addition to post-concussion symptoms. I wonder whether you might have experienced something like a mini-stoke or damage to a specific area of the brain, or have a damaged or trapped nerve in your spine or generally something in addition. (I am not a medical doctor, by the way, so I am not qualified to diagnose these conditions.)
I do know, however, that once a doctor has come to the PCS conclusion they may stop looking for other types of injury. In my own case, I have PCS, but I also had injuries to my neck and back which were ignored. I think that my neck injuries were much less serious ultimately than PCS but possibly more easy to treat, so it was a pity not to investigate them at all.
Anyway, if loads of other people with PCS say that they have one-sided weakness then take the above with a pinch of salt, but I haven't had any one-sided weakness. I have had one-sided headaches and pain but nothing on the motor front, to answer your question.
Good luck with finding a pathway to a better place than where you are at the moment. We're routing for you.
CS
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarileeG
Hi everyone,
First of all Mark in Idaho: I want to thank you for your many helpful posts and esp for posting the link to the TBI Survival Guide. I don’t know what we would have done without it. Please know you’ve made a positive difference for me.
My accident just happened august 2010. I was mountain biking – with helmet - at high speed downhill on a trail I’d been on many times before. I hit a big boulder in the trail and flew forward over the handlebars. I landed on my head.
After a couple ER and primary care visits I was fortunate to be referred to a neurologist who diagnosed me with PCS and has prescribed lots of medicine.
I’m 40, female, have a history of sleep disorders, and had concussion as a kid. It was amazing to see that primary care dr’s know very little to nothing about PCS.
I’ve been dealing with terrible headaches, unbelievable fatigue, difficulty walking / weakness on the right side of my body (in PT for this), problems with balance, dizziness (has improved) nightmares and disturbed sleep, foggy brain. Sometimes I feel like I have a bobble-head.
I’m very sensitive to noise – I haven’t had a lot of success being in large groups of people / in public. Going to the neurologist is a major undertaking – all the stimulation and long way to walk in that enormous building can make me sick for days. Last time I was down for 8 days afterward.
Ringing in my ears. Some days I wake up with blurred vision. Reading and using the pc for more than an hour or so generally brings on the headaches. Light sensitivity. I spend a lot of time resting and/or sleeping
Has anyone else experienced weakness on one side of the body or difficulty walking?
I'm to see an ENT on Monday about the ringing ears. My expectations are low. I think he is going to tell me to do biofeedback. Has anyone done this?
I found this community a couple months ago and read through many of the posts. I haven’t joined this group before now because I was convinced I would be well 100% and back to work after 8 or 10 weeks. When 3 months since injury passed last weekend I started to realize this is a serious injury.
the emotional side of this has been really challening as well. I go through periods of being tearful. I can be emotionally "up" but i still cry at things i would never have cried about before the accident. Anyone else have this?
I'm glad to have found this group.
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