Hello,

Though I do not have time to give the entire story behind my injury/recovery, I have some fears and questions I'd like to bring to the fore.
My TBI was 6 months ago. PCS symptoms abound since then, running the gamut from migraines and visual changes, to panic disorder, tinnitus, cognitive deficiency and lethargy.
In the month of May, however, I had about 3 weeks of what seemed like constant improvement. My symptoms began to let up considerably, and I found myself increasingly returning to activity, free of fear and the incessant pain I faced for the 5 months prior.

But in the past week or two, something new has arisen out of the miasma of head.
I have this one spot on my neck that seems swollen and radiates pain. The spot is just under the base of my skull, on the right side of my cervical spine. My neck has begun to feel very tense most of the time, and I find that as either the tension or my heart rate increases, blood rushes to this spot, then wraps around my head, after which I am gripped by symptoms of throbbing head pain, nausea, worsened visual symptoms, and dizziness.

This complication is causing me a great deal of fear. I am afraid that my initial injury set the course of a brain bleed. I fear that perhaps this spot in my neck is symptomatic of something in itself, such as a slowly growing AVN, aneurysm, or hemorrhage. At the moment I do not have the funds to get a CT scan or MRI, so I am not sure how else to elucidate the truth behind the fears. I try to tell myself that if I am to have a berry aneurysm rupture or a hemorrhage etc., then it is completely out of my control and simply how it will have to be. Is there any credence to these fears? Or is there any other reason for such severe symptoms to arise out of a stretch of time when I was seeing continuous improvement?
I should add that this cluster of pain/symptoms is not as bad in the morning. But by night time I am largely incapacitated.

Thank you,
Schuyler S.