Possible TBI
 

A little over 2 years ago my husband (40) started experiencing severe confusion, short term memory loss, could not find the right words to say, extreme fatigue, "feeling like information that he needed to comprehend was in jello", he felt like each of his eyes were seeing on a different level or plane, double/blurry vision in one eye, loss of taste, numbness on one side of tongue, "strange" headache in one area of top part of his head, slurring of some speech, etc. Dr. at first thought he might be having stoke symptoms, but was ruled out by MRI and CT scans. He was sent for testing and was found to have a cognitive disorder. He since has had another MRI and CT (normal) and a sleep study (normal). His symptoms have slowly improved over the past 2 years...he doesn't sleep as much and has days where he just feels much better overall. But he has days where he will ask me to drive and I can just look in his eyes and tell he doesn't feel well. Symptoms seem to worsen if he over works himself. He has started and stopped seeing the Drs out of frustration of not finding a dx. I think at first we (my husband and I) just assumed it was a stroke that was not showing up on the scans. But the more research I do the more I am convinced that it is something like a TBI. He fell and hit his head at work about 20 years ago, and has had several blows to his head from tree limbs (he was a logger)....one was a severe blow to his left eye, one he does not remember the actual impact...but his hard hat and equipment where thrown. He has always worked alone...so there was not a witness. His symptoms did not happen directly after these incidents so we never thought to talk to the Dr about it. He is currently seeing our family Dr once a month and he has prescribed Abilify and Depakote. We are frustrated about the Drs visits...it just seems like they aren't trying to get to the bottom of the problems just treating the symptoms. We just don't know where to turn or what to do. My husband is growing more "down" and short tempered. I wonder how much is just frustration of everything he is going through (not being able to work, not feeling well, etc)...or how much is from TBI. We don't know what the next step is that we need to take...where to turn...or what to do. Thank you so much for reading this long post and I would appreciate ANY comments or information.

I noticed there were no comments to your post. I'm sure it's not because no one wants to help. I couldn't read through it because it was such too long. Perhaps you could make it into short paragraphs to make it more readable for those of us with TBI.

A little over 2 years ago my husband (40) started experiencing severe confusion, short term memory loss, could not find the right words to say, extreme fatigue, "feeling like information that he needed to comprehend was in jello", he felt like each of his eyes were seeing on a different level or plane, double/blurry vision in one eye, loss of taste, numbness on one side of tongue, "strange" headache in one area of top part of his head, slurring of some speech, etc.

Dr. at first thought he might be having stoke symptoms, but was ruled out by MRI and CT scans. He was sent for testing and was found to have a cognitive disorder. He since has had another MRI and CT (normal) and a sleep study (normal).

His symptoms have slowly improved over the past 2 years...he doesn't sleep as much and has days where he just feels much better overall. But he has days where he will ask me to drive and I can just look in his eyes and tell he doesn't feel well. Symptoms seem to worsen if he over works himself. He has started and stopped seeing the Drs out of frustration of not finding a dx. I think at first we (my husband and I) just assumed it was a stroke that was not showing up on the scans. But the more research I do the more I am convinced that it is something like a TBI. He fell and hit his head at work about 20 years ago, and has had several blows to his head from tree limbs (he was a logger)....one was a severe blow to his left eye, one he does not remember the actual impact...but his hard hat and equipment where thrown. He has always worked alone...so there was not a witness. His symptoms did not happen directly after these incidents so we never thought to talk to the Dr about it.

He is currently seeing our family Dr once a month and he has prescribed Abilify and Depakote. We are frustrated about the Drs visits...it just seems like they aren't trying to get to the bottom of the problems just treating the symptoms. We just don't know where to turn or what to do. My husband is growing more "down" and short tempered. I wonder how much is just frustration of everything he is going through (not being able to work, not feeling well, etc)...or how much is from TBI.

We don't know what the next step is that we need to take...where to turn...or what to do. Thank you so much for reading this long post and I would appreciate ANY comments or information.

Have you considered upper cervical chiropractic?
With any head hit or such , it makes sense to me to get the cervical spine evaluated for misalignment. Generally most MDs don't even suggest or consider this.

Some info sites
www.upcspine.com
www.nucca.com

[QUOTE=Jo*mar;894132]Have you considered upper cervical chiropractic?
With any head hit or such , it makes sense to me to get the cervical spine evaluated for misalignment. Generally most MDs don't even suggest or consider this.



He has been seeing a chiropractor for his back and neck 2X's a week for a few months.

carly214,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear about your husband's struggles. Thanks for reposting in paragraphs. Many of us struggle to follow from line to line when the paragraph is more than 5 lines or so. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to repost others posts with the paragraph spacing.

It sounds like your husband is experiencing Multiple Impact/Concussion Syndrome. It tends to become more evident as we reach about 40 years old.

Has he had any other traumas or illnesses in the past few years? A high fever can cause concussion symptoms. Getting badly drunk can also cause problems.

He likely needs to get started on a brain health nutrition regimen with a low stress lifestyle.

The basic regimen starts with B-12 (500 to 1000 mcgs per day) a B-50 complex, a high potency multi-vitamin like GNC Megamen, D3, Omega's, magnesium, calcium, all of the anti-oxidants and some others that I forget. My memory is stuck tonight. Someone will probably add to this list.

Avoid caffeine, alcohol, MSG and artificial sweeteners. A single serving per day of caffeine and alcohol is considered OK by some.

There are lots of work-arounds and accommodations to help tolerate the symptoms. More about that later.

I am recovering from a week of visiting family in California so I know it will take me a few days to get my brain going again. I slept most of today after the long drive home yesterday. And, I didn't even drive. My wife has to do the driving.

Let us know the specific struggles he has. There are lots of good and experienced people here to help.

My best to you.