Drew,

Sounds like you have had a rough ride, I'm glad for your improvement!

Bud

Drew,

You can't even stand up for 9 months. Man ! That was rough. All because of meds??

Jeez.

Keep recovering.

Haven't been able to stand up for more than about 30 seconds in two and a half years. I went off all meds for 6 months and I got much worse. The only thing that helps me is meds. That said, I went and saw many doctors and got a diagnosis that my primary problem was a migraine.
PCS is a cluster of a hundred different conditions.
Proper treatment depends on what your primary problem is. And of course there are no guarantees. It's going to be wide variation in responses and different treatment protocols.

Seriously Joe in LA. My goodness !!!

I had a brain contusion (mTBI) and I got hit with PCS symptoms after 4 or 5 weeks. Thought I was going to die while driving and stopped the car and went to ER and all went crazy after that. Was 6 years ago. Still recovering !!!

Overdoing it and a couple neck injuries contributed to my decline. Stoping the antidepressant is when my head got really bad because of the withdrawal effects made it worse. The withdrawal effects included dizziness, vertigo, hallucinations, flashing lights, electric shocks, tremors. Nine months later I still have all the effects just not so bad. I stepped the antidepressant down ten percent a week and still had wicked withdrawal effects.

Joe and JudyAnn, when did you start taking your antidepressant?

My daughter is unable to read presently because her vision has been affected by her brain injury, so she dictates to me what to put in the post. Her reply is below:

"Drew, I'm so sorry to hear that you were unable to stand up for 9 months. That sounds incredibly frustrating. I am glad it is starting to get a little bit better now, and I hope that it continues to improve. I am on Effexor and have been on the same dose for almost a year now, so I don't think my problem is due to withdrawal symptoms. I have had some persistent tremors and weird problems from other medication that I have discontinued. Although I had discontinued these medications, some of my problems are still persisting. It sound like injured brains may be more vulnerable to long-term problems from over-medication. I guess we all have to be extra careful."

Thank you for your posts. We all need to learn from each other, particularly since it seems the medical community does not know much about how to treat brain injury.

I know it's miserable not being able to do anything. Hang in there. Just try not to do anything to trigger the migraines. For me that meant drinking meals through a straw because just chewing food made me dizzy.

I heard Effexor is even harder to quit than nortriptyline so be mindful of that.

To minimize the effect of a head bump or even just talking too much, you can take one dose of Ibuprofen on the first night only. Curcumin or ice also work. You just want to stop the inflammation from spreading.

To protect your head, sometimes I wear one of these padded bennies: **********.