Reading one post at a time so forgive me for multiple posts..... however, this one scares me a little... scares me a lot... I have understated my issues from the beginning and only have had one goal in mind since the beginning... to get back to work...

So does this mean that for the rest of my life when I overwork myself or my head I will get brain fog and with brain fog I can not drive... it is very scary.. I can not see or understand intersections...

I think we all tend, to some extent, to downplay our symptoms. It's part of not upsetting (annoying?) our loved ones and trying to keep up our own spirits.

The fact that you can acknowledge your brain injury, and seek treatment, means that you are NOT in the category of the folks I was describing above. As incredible as it sounds, those poor souls were COMPLETELY UNAWARE that they had a TBI.

There is noway to predict how much individual patients will recover.

From my own experience, I must say that I'm really amazed by the brain's capacity for neuroplasticity. I have regained things (like some sense of hot and cold in my hands), not because my brain healed, in the sense that a broken leg heals, but because less damaged areas of my brain have learned to perform this function.

No matter what anyone tells you about "windows of recovery," NEVER stop working at cognitive rehab. The brain in amazing.

Is what I can do now the same as before my MVA? No - but it's a heck of a lot more than I could do when I was pulled out of the wreck. I can even drive - nobody thought that would EVER happen.

Hope, believe, strive!

Thank you Hockey...

I think that I am just now, after 5 months realizing that I can not rush this... I have tried... I have done non-conventional therapies... I have done every drug on the market, I think ..

I just want this daily headache to go away... I wan to go back to work... I want to exercise... today is a horribly depressing day... realization stinks...

I think there are stages in TBI recovery. I tried the "ignore it and push through" phase. What a disaster.

You sound like me: the type of person who is proactive about finding SOLUTIONS. Sadly, TBI isn't that kind of problem.

TBI is hard on us chronic overachievers. Seven (gulp) years in, and I'm still wrestling to accept that I don't have to be "super cripple." (I also have a spinal cord injury.)

7 years... WOW!

It just seems like there should be some solution... I know theres not, but I just keep looking!

Please don't be discouraged by my situation.

I suffered what is called a spiral injury. I was cutoff at highway speed. My head went back and forth. The impact then sent my car, airborne, slamming it down perpendicular to the road, and sending my head side to side (and smashing it against the driver's side window). My brain did a complete 360 inside my skull, tearing off precious axions, from all areas. I lost consciousness and had bleeding into my brain. My neuro psychologist told me, short of being shot in the head, that's about as devastating as it gets.

My situation is complicated by instability in my neck. I sustained an injury high up on my spine. The neuro-surgeon deemed it too dangerous to insert metal rods. Sadly, that means that jostling can trigger symptoms like brain fog, headache, etc...

I was told, in the beginning, that it would be about adaptation, not recovery. Still, I have never given up and have come back much, much more than anyone predicted.

Amazing!!! Happy your alive and can share with me! Thank you!

I just got hit from the side and apparently hit my head somewhere... every doctor has said that however, I do not recall any of it... but swore I was fine... that was until the next day when someone told my my eyes were weird and pupils were different.

I believed the ER doc when they told me on a monday I would be back at work on a Thursday... I refused to believe my GP when he said it would be 3 months... I really need to learn to accept and stop fighting!

I'm one of those overachieving types too... which is why I continued to read and research until I found out about the hormones and pursued it until I received the testing.

It took me 3 years to get to that point of getting the testing and I'm coming close to the 4th anniversary of the date of the accident.

I remember the first neuro I saw kept telling me I was going to get 100% all back to normal in 2 weeks... then 4 more weeks... then 6 more weeks... and then couldn't understand why I still wasn't all better after 5 months... which is why I found another neuro who would take my case seriously.

Now I'm getting so much better than I was before the HRT that my Dr.'s (all except the endo treating me) are pleasantly shocked. I suspect that they were starting to think that my severe deficits and debilitating impairments were going to be permanent...

Every case is different and they say that the Type A personalities are hit harder by this kind of injury - but I suspect we tend to persevere better than the other personality types do.

I also could literally not see traffic in intersections, next to the car I was a passenger in or process even the speed of the traffic.

Now, I can drive on the freeway again, in short trips, by myself. It took me 3+ years and hormone replacement therapy to get there.

The hypopituitarism caused by concussion is the latest and greatest research concerning mTBI... but you never know what they are going to learn in the next couple of years.

I say never give up hope, do the best you can, and it gets easier as time moves on.