Hello,

I'm new to posting but have been reading through the posts frequently. My health condition is the aftermath of coil embolization for an arteriovenous fistula in the cavernous sinus. There had been a meshing of artery and vein in the area behind the right eye, such that an abnormal connection, or fistula, had formed, and was causing horrible problems. Anyway, the doctors went in and inserted 62 metal coils into the vein(s) to plug up the fistula, and that seems to be resolved now.

There were post-embolization issues, such as severe double vision, but many of these problems have subsided. What's left is too much drowsiness (I grab 9 to 11 hours of sleep at night and still take a nap during the day), some memory lapses, and strange mood swings in the afternoon and evening. After reading up on brain injury on the internet, I think what I have is a brain injury issue and should be acknowledged and addressed.

My doctors were quite focused on the earlier symptoms, which were disturbing enough (headaches, eye proptosis, edema, etc), and none of them thought about brain injury. For one thing, my case was rare, in that the fistula came up spontaneously, without a previous head trauma. However, people who have sustained head trauma have developed fistula problems.

I brought up the hypersomnia, memory lapses and mood swings with my doctors. The neurologist told me to stop the Gabapentin and scheduled me for a March 2012 appointment. He doesn't know the Gabapentin stoppage did not remove the symptoms. I told my PCP about it, and he had me talk to the counselor at the local clinic, who had me fill out a questionnaire. She said I have depression and scheduled me to see a psychiatrist, also on March 2012.

My medical coverage is a public health setup so I have to do my own coordination because of discontinuities in the system. My question is, did anyone here see a neuropsychologist? I think that is the type of specialist I should see, and I plan to ask around at the county hospital, but I thought I should get feedback from other brain injury patients about this.

Thanks for reading.