Hey guys,

Tripped on a loose brick and fell down a wheelchair ramp like a graceful ballerina and whacked the asphalt with the left side of my face about three months ago. Had some extremely nasty symptoms, and it ultimately turned into PCS.

Had a terrible time reading and writing-- reading is mostly better unless I have to scan down a list, and writing is still really challenging-- have a hard time organizing my thoughts.

Anybody else had this? I'm at that 3-month plateau of going oh god, i'll never get well...

Definitely affects my job performance and I'm really sick of being a moron at work. Plays merry hell with the self-esteem, no? Please tell me it gets better!

dancingcavalier,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. You post sounds like just about every newbies post. Sorry to hear you are struggling so.

Yes, things do get better. Unfortunately, recovering from a concussion is not like most other recoveries. You need to let you brain recover by allowing it to have quiet rest. It also helps to moderate stress levels in all of your daily environments.

Please tell us more about yourself (age, job, living situation), your symptoms and what you have done to try to help you brain recover.

It will help if you read the sticky thread about Vitamins and nutrition in the top panel. It has some good links in addition to the nutritional information.

Since you whacked the side of your head, a side twist to your neck was likely part of your injury. Getting good diagnostics and therapy for neck injuries will be helpful. Often, there are no neck injury symptoms except for maybe some sore to the touch spots behind the ears. Icing will help while you seek care.

Feel free to tell us anything. We have heard it all before so nothing surprises us. Doctors may think you are strange with your complaints but we don't.

My best to you.

I get where you are, because I was there. I've gotten significantly better, so take heart, you can get well! If you have some time and want to be uplifted, read the hope and healing thread at the top of forum page. Part of my story is in there, but I plan on reposting once I'm totally better.

I am still trying to get back to writing, as I am a writer, and I have written one children story and one poem recently, so I'm thrilled about that. My cognitive problems are over, but I still have some emotional problem to address, as well as problems with my eyes that make reading and writing difficult at times. Have you been to see a neuro ophthalmologist? Knowing what I know now, that should've been one of the first things I did. It certainly couldn't hurt for you to do that. A regular ophthalmologist will not be able to diagnose any PCS related Vision issues.

If you share more of your story, I'm sure we can offer more help and support. Good luck to you!

I'm using voice recognition on my phone, and it's not perfect.

We all understand. I'm at six months and still having lots of trouble with reading, writing , auditory processing....the list goes on.

My advice is to try to understand your weaknesses and find work arounds or help. AND, most importantly stay hopeful and focus on the things that you can still do well. It might be a long time til I can read a book or write a paper or make a presentation, but in the meantime I am focusing on expanding upon the things that I CAN do. Until I started doing that I was feeling quite depressed.

Su seb

A lot of us go through this in varying degrees about 6 weeks after my accident I realised I couldn't remember how to write my signature let alone do much else. I does improve over improve time and recently even proof read my daughters degree dissertations - 20,000 words each.

Wow guys, thanks so much!!!

I do a lot of things at work (nonprofit) but most recently they've had me on grantwriting. Ultimately want to work in museum education, so it's great ground experience, but I am painfully slow now. Not used to being slow at things and one of my worst faults is impatience with the inability to keep up, so I'm having to fight back my own frustration as much as anything else. A good learning experience for sure, but graaah.

@Dfayesmom, yes I am definitely having weird vision symptoms. The longer the line and bigger the paragraph, the more words blur into each other. Have my annual vision appt coming up soon and will definitely ask them for a reference! Have also lost most of my ability to edit since scanning is so hard.

I finally got back into reading, and honestly the best things I've found are books that I can laugh with friends about-- and that don't have to make any kind of sense to begin with. Reading the Mabinogion right now and it's hilarious, uses good vocabulary, and like most Celtic mythology, often makes no sense whatever. Also playing the Inklings' Irene Iddesleigh game (who can read the longest aloud without laughing) with my friends. Nerds ftw.

(Can't post links yet, so to digress: Amanda Kittrick Ros was renowned by Mark Twain, Aldous Huxley, and the Inklings-- Tolkien, Lewis, etc-- as the world's worst novelist, and her works are unintentionally incredibly hilarious. For instance:
)

Things also look like completely different things at first, both in pictures and in words-- so for instance I'll see something like "great" and instantly read it as "Geoffrey" and then be like wait what??

Vitaminswise, have been taking a daily multi and have been trying to work with omega-3s-- but the latter upsets my stomach really badly. Heard krill oil is better than fish oil, but haven't been able to find any pure (and can't afford a whole lot of supplements :/ )

I'm completely out of sick and vacay time and lost an entire paycheck to unpaid sick leave, so unfortunately I don't have a lot of options as to therapies at this point. I tend to work very long days, so I've had trouble getting my life back in other ways-- did kung fu/tai chi briefly before my accident, and was forbidden by my neuro (contact sports.) Emailed my sifu to see if i could come back and just do forms with no sparring. It's my sanctuary, and I really, really hope I can go back soon. Any therapies I can diy are what I'll need to be looking at right now; barely even have time for my annual appointments.

The hope thread at the top is super helpful-- thanks guys! It's like an "It Gets Better" campaign for mTBI and TBI :3

I've been keeping up with the studies and frankly quite annoyed that we didn't do these 30 years ago. So many came out in March that would have been super useful to know in January! grouse grouse, gripe gripe, say n'more

Oh also, has anybody else been getting The Look with people you encounter? The one that is like simultaneously "you are a problem but I am too polite to say anything" and "wow, you're so stupid" and "I'm not sure if you really mean this or if you're making it up, you can do this, so why can't you do that?" It's been one of the most discouraging parts of recovery.


Oh, a discovery of my own! I joined *edit* a few months ago as a beta, and that has really helped. It's essentially structured CBT/positive thinking exercises in a social media setting and a super sweet community. I still have a few invites left if anybody wants one.

The "are you stupid?" looks really got to me! I went a long time before getting a diagnosis, so for a while, I did think I was stupid! There are a couple people I can't forgive for how they treated me, even though they didn't t know my diagnosis. There is such thing as kindness, and I think more people need to embrace it rather than think other people are so inferior. I worked with a couple Queens of Snark!

I wouldn't bother going to your next eye check. If you're having concussion related vision problems, they will not be able to get a good read on your eyes. Instead I would get a referral from your neurologist for a neuro ophthalmologist. But if you are having money issues and time issues, you will be limited in what you can do to help make yourself better. In terms of money, I personally had to prioritize. My vision therapy has cost me about $600 so far out of pocket, but insurance has covered the rest. I told my husband not to get me any birthday presents this year, but that my vision therapy was the best gift I could have. I don't know what your situation is, but maybe you might be able to pinch some pennies here and there to help pay for therapy? Or is there anyone who could loan you money? I know a lot of people don't have those kind of resources, but some people just hesitate to use them. If there's ever a good time to use such resources, it's now. I had to borrow some money from my parents which I will repay them as soon as possible. I guess all I'm saying is that I had to learn it was okay to ask for help wherever I can get it!

As for time, if you don't have enough time to take good care of yourself, that could pose a problem. I think most people with PCS have had setbacks in recovery because they tried to do too much. I know I have. If you have to work, you have to work, but try not to overschedule yourself. Your brain needs actual rest to heal!

Is it possible that your employer might be able to assign you less taxing responsibilities for a little while?

I'm sure other people will have helpful suggestions about working with PCS. I had to take a leave of absense from work after my diagnosis and then was laid off, but I did work for about a year and a half with PCS symptoms before getting diagnosed. 1. If you can take little breaks to rest your eyes for a few minutes throughout the day, do it! It can really help! I used to go hide in the bathroom or go out to my car for fifteen minutes. 2. Forget your social obligations and worry about what's best for your health. True friends will understand, and who cares about the rest? I made the mistake of still going to lunch with friends everyday, even though I couldn't enjoy the experience and would have been better off resting. Of course some social interaction is great for keeping your spirits up, but you should try to strike a balance! 3. Try to institute fail-safe measures to protect yourself from making mistakes. I wish I would have done this but I was in denial that anything was wrong, and I created quite a few problems that only came out later. Embarrassing but not really my fault. I'm sure that is part of why I was laid off.

Good luck! I hope some of this helps!