my husband suffered a concussion as a young child. he played football in middle school and high school. when i met him in his late 20s, he had just begun to suffer from periodic seizures. we did not know what they were. this went on for some years. his personality began to change. he became progressively moody, verbally abusive, paranoid, sneaky, antagonistic,argumentative...very passive aggressive. it was no picnic. finally we figured out he was having seizures, and he went to a neurologist, where he was prescribed oxcarbazepine (trileptal). it helped cut the seizures down to about one every 6 months or so. upon doing independent research, i requested the neurologist also prescribe antidepressants for him and wondered why it took my asking for this medication when it is apparently a 'given' for people suffering from seizures. he has mild amnesia after each seizure, but he always 'comes back' within an hour. it often takes him days to recover his sense of taste and smell as well as his energy. before a seizure, and this is a new observation of mine, he is particularly nasty and lethargic. he was overweight at one point and the seizures, despite the medication, were consistently present...99 percent of the time he had(and still has) them at night. he lost almost a 100lbs and now they only occur once every six months on average. he is a mechanical genius, and never forgets how to do his job and has since even learned a new mechanical field in appliance repair in addition to the hvac certification he obtained during one of his unemployed periods about 6 years ago. i often think because he is hardwired for mechanics, he is predisposed to remembering those things...his brain is very methodical and 'defaults' to those areas he knows already very well. i have discovered that when he 'remembers' something that makes him angry, we will have the same argument verbatim and repeatedly. i have begun writing things on our bathroom mirror that he needs to remember so we don't have the same fight over and over and over. that has helped. we've been together for 15 years. i don't believe his personality changes were all caused by the seizures or the concussion. i think he was predisposed towards them before the concussion, and the subsequent seizures amplified them...perhaps not all of them, but definitely some of them. i am now seeking more information on the new electrotherapy nodules, similar to the small massage pads you can put on an affected area and administer a small electric current to via the pad, for the head. i am hoping these might help discharge some of the extra electricity, apparent from the mri, in his brain. we are also pursuing at this time a chiropractic regimen in the hope that maybe a nerve or two might be under spinal pressure and, once relieved, might help resolve the seizure the issue. this is the first support group i've ever seen for this. it is difficult to live with someone with this condition. he changes jobs frequently when he becomes unhappy with the inefficiencies he observes at work. up until recently he was getting fired on average, every two years from a job. the new knowledge and practice he has acquired has led to more self-confidence, and the job change has been self-sought. stability is not living in our house due to this. i work full time. are there ANY areas that i've named or not, ANYONE is having success with to mitigate the effects of tbi long term? are there any studies going on anywhere? field trials? thank you. amp

allijesse,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. There are plenty of people here that would like to help you. Many of use, due to our PCS vision issues, struggle to read long paragraphs like yours. It would help us if you could repost it with a double paragraph space every 5 or 6 lines. Then, those of us with visual struggles can follow it from line to line and offer help and support.

My best to you.

Mark, In over a year since my TBI I never realized that was one of my problems with reading! Thanks for pointing it out.