Problems after car accident, feel so alone and scared
 

Hello, just joined and am pleased to have found this forum as I feel so alone.

A little background...I was rear ended by 2 trucks 4 months ago (one hit and run) I had a concussion, cervical neck sprain, rotator cuff injury and contusions to my head and face.
Right after the accident I was so disorientated, felt sick, it also felt as though there was an elephant sitting on the top of my head. :(
Could not remember 2 trucks hit me until the next day, kept saying only one did and it was a massive crash.

Even since then I have not felt the same, I am in PT and OT (vestibular therapy too) feel so disorientated, foggy, cannot remember what I was going to say, for eg: I'll ask someone to pass me something and even staring right at the thing cannot think what it's called, I feel dizzy when walking.

Even though I'm in therapy for my shoulder etc it's the mental stuff which is so upsetting, the therapist told me she could probably get me a lot better but her words were not 100% which upset me.

I'm doing exercises at home, eye exercises etc.. (which actually make me feel worse!!)

thanks for listening, I know I'm not alone, this is awful! :hug::(

the good news is I recovered a lot after my first head injury. it is very early in your recovery and you will heal a lot in the next year. try to be patient. the bad news is I didn't recover so well from second one so don't hurt your head again. you will be ok

Thank you markneil,

I'm very sorry to hear you're having a hard time.

I think I just want to feel 100% right now so it's frustrating.

When I was rear ended by the 2 trucks, the first hit knocked my head forward and down hard then the 2nd hit was massive and my head went forward again and I think I lost a few seconds on that one.

Thank you for your encouraging words. :hug:take care.

hang in there. you'll be ok. and who's to say you won't be 100 percent. and maybe you won't even notice the other 5 percent if you are not 100 percent but be patient because it is early. there's lots of people who are better equipped than I to give good answers and hope they respond. good luck!

I was in a car crash where my car went airborn and landed on it's side.

The first thing Dr. prescribed was vestibular therapy and the eye exercises made me feel horrible. The problem may not be your vestibular function but your visual system. It took me a year of doing therapy to realize I was barking up the wrong tree.

Google the symptoms of convergent insufficiency. This is what I had and has to do with your eye's ability to track objects. The result is headaches, fogginess, difficulty concentrating.

I suggest seeing a qualifed neuro-opthamologist that can evaluate for this condition and prescribe tinted/prism glasses(I wouldn't recommend vision therapy as it's more expensive and glasses can provide immediate relief for some). Hope you find relief.

You may want to look into upper cervical chiropractic care.
Any head hit can knock the upper vertebra out of alignment, so getting alignment checked & adjusted if needed may make for better recovery.
It is different from regular chiro care, you can look up some you tube videos to see how it is done.

There are posts here mentioning it also if you want to do a search for those.

Here are some links with more info -
http://www.upcspine.com/self.htm

www.nucca.com

dagma1,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear of your struggles.

There is a lot of good information in the Vitamins sticky at the top. Check out the links at the bottom of the first post.

The important concept to understand is Quiet rest. Not sleep but low stress with moderated physical effort.

I've torn my rotator cuff a few times, the first from getting rear ended when my hand was holding the top of the steering wheel. With the last, I developed shoulder impingement along with it. The first therapists tried to push me for Range of Motion and all that and things seemed to get worse. Finally, a less is more therapist taught me how to take care of my shoulder so I could give it time to heal. It took some time but it did heal up. I spent a year with no improvement except in ROM with the first therapists. Then, when we slowed down, the range of motion tightened up but my shoulder became much more stable. I improved the ROM after the shoulder healed. I don't have all my ROM but I stopped working on it once it got good enough.

My ortho gave me some stats about shoulders regarding surgery. he said that 1/3 get better with surgery, 1/3 stay the same, and 1/3 end up worse.

Please feel free to tell us all about your 'mental' stuff. There are plenty of people here with lots of experience dealing with cognitive and memory issues, etc.

My best to you.

Thank you all so much, it helps to know I'm not alone but I'm sorry to hear everyone has problems.

The vestibular therapy is making me feel worse, my eyes hurt and they feel as though they are bouncing around and the headache gets worse, the therapist did say I could feel worse to begin with and I see her again tomorrow so will talk to her about it.
When trying to follow objects she said my eyes were not stable, they were moving abnormally and my balance is off.

That's very interesting about the convergent insufficiency, going to look it up.

I like to keep active, hike a lot and run up steep hills etc but have not been able to do any of that for the 4 months because of the dizziness and pounding headaches. I get headaches walking and just sitting.

I read a little about the vitamins, very interesting and I do take some of them, going to look again in a minute.

I know I have to just try to keep calm and it'll all take time, today I was speaking to someone on the phone and she asked me for my maiden name....had to say excuse me for a moment to try and remember then said..."I'll be right back, goodbye....hold on..bye" I set the microwave for 3 mins for a hot cup of tea and didn't put the cup in so the microwave was warming up nothing, the cup was right there in front of me and I somehow didn't see it. Trying to see the funny side of it but it's hard.

Thank you all again for your help and advice, so appreciated :grouphug:

Therapy may be too much
 

A month after my accident I started physio therapy and it made me really sick. I had whiplash in my neck and upper back. The therapist was talking things really slow but I had to stop because it made everything worst. I waited another couple of months until things settled down.

I too have gaze stabilization issues and do exercises to improve. Basically your vision, ears and proprioceptors have a huge effect on your balance and dizziness. I have to be really careful about what shoes I wear because anything with too much of a cushion challenges everything and I get dizzy and nauseas.

You have to listen to your body and question if things are making you worse. Sometimes you are just not ready to do the therapy.

Good Luck