Blackouts and confusion
 

Hi All,

I am pretty new here, but I hope someone can help me gain some answers to what is going on.

To give you some background, I am 30 years old and 15 years ago, as a young man I suffered a massive subarrachnoid brain haemorrhage which nearly killed me. Indeed I arrested twice on the operating table, yet by chance and luck, I am still here. As a general rule am normally quite okay. I have no impairment in movement or brain function, in terms of everyday logic, problem solving, etc. Just a rather poor short-term memory and issues in organizational skills.

However, the following has taken place since.
About 10 years ago, I used to get attacks of dizziness, normally lasting about 30 seconds or so which simply made me feel very sick and hot, commonly breaking out into a serious sweat. These would happen anything between once a month to, at their height, 2 or 3 times a day.
After a year or so, these eventually went away, but were replaced approximately 5 years back with a tendency to occasionally, perhaps 3 or 4 times a year, fit in my sleep, which resulted in a dislocated shoulder. Again, this lasted for about a year before going away by itself.

Now the problems are back, and this time I've been putting up with it for almost 2 years, hoping it would go away, as the other two did, but it isn't showing any signs of stopping.

What happens now is this...
I get dizzy spells and 'blackouts'. Sometimes I get a warning of up to 2 or 3 minutes whereby I feel a little 'disconnected' from reality, other times it comes on in 10 seconds or so. When the dizziness actually hits, it's like my brain has been hit with strong drugs in a sudden rush, the hot feeling from 10 years ago breaks out and then I black out. To the outside world, I am still conscious and at times even continue with 'life', such as completing paperwork, doing whatever I was doing previously, etc. However, those who know that I have these episodes will recognise them as I may appear confused or very one track minded, only focussing on what I had planned out in my mind to get done, I never however actually lose consiousness. I have no active involvement during this phase. Typically the fog slowly lifts around 5 to 10 minutes later, whereby I may be a little confused for a couple of minutes - I will however have no memory of the time between the dizzy spell starting and it's eventual end, I then have to piece together what has happened in between. Sometimes, with warning and something to focus on, such as really concentrating on reading a book or email I can stop the 'blackout phase' from happening and only get the dizziness and hot sweats, occasionally with a strong emotional rush of negative feelings for a minute or two before returning to normality.

This is happening anything between once a month and twice a week at the moment and I don't know what to do about it. Is this condition known? Is there anything I can do?

Any help appreciated. Mav

Welcome to NeuroTalk Mav. I'm sorry for the terrible time that you've had recently and I really wish I could help you, but I can't.

I was thinking though, that you might get more answers if you were to copy your post over to the "Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Concussion Syndome:

Here's the TBI link. Just click it & it will take you there - http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum92.html

Thanks Koala, I have reposted, with a little more detail in the forum you recommended.

Hi Maverick,
Two things come to mind.

1. When I was young and up until I had B12 replacement I would sort of black out if I stood up too quickly. Things went black. I didn't faint, it would clear up and I'd feel a bit dizzy for a little while. That was very frequent. It went away completely after I had B12 replacement. Prior to that doctors would say it was from low iron, and I would then be given iron which helped.

2. When I had tetanus a few years ago I would break out in a sweat when the seizures hit. I think it was because they are so scary.

If you decided to try Methylcobalamin, the active form of B12, then it might be good to also increase the potassium in your diet. B12 tends to help blood cells become normal, if your kind of low B12 affected blood cells. When blood cells begin dividing normally again they use a lot of potassium. If you're low in potassium the increase in need, that can't be met, can cause muscle spasms and a sense of weakness, if not actual weakness.