Where do I begin? For all the people here who have PCS due to accidents, I can not say the same. I had a total psychological breakdown a couple months ago and started punching myself in the head in the right temporal lobe. The police came and I was put in a psychiatric hospital and a few days later the symptoms began. I was trapped, had no freedom, and none of the so-called medical staff even offered to examine me for concussion, despite my problems being on file.

Since that time in March, things have gotten worse. I am currently suffering from the following:

- Tinnitus (one ear)
- Hearing loss (one ear)
- Headaches
- Insomnia - made worse by caffeine or exercise, even much earlier in the day
- Occasional fatigue
- Vivid dreams and nightmares
- Concentration problems
- Some difficulty finding the right words to describe my thoughts
- Bouts of uncontrollable crying (may be PCS, may be my reaction to the situation)
- Feelings of unreality at times

Granted, many of these symptoms are not as severe as others here describe. It has now been 7 weeks since symptoms began and things seem to be slowly getting worse in some ways. Each day I lose a little bit more hope.

The most disturbing problems for me are the tinnitus and hearing loss. The tinnitus is not nearly as bad on average as when it first occurred, but the hearing loss is even more frightening to me, and it is noticeable, although not dramatic. There are definite dips in hearing sensitivity at many different frequencies on one side, and I have my official audiology exam scheduled tomorrow. I am devastated just thinking about it.

I am wondering what the odds are that my hearing comes back. I took a 6 day course of prednisone a month ago and the tinnitus was greatly reduced and the hearing between my ears has equalized. But as soon as the course was over the problems came back. I am going to ask to be put through another course tomorrow, but I don't know if the ENT will even bother to let me try.

I am terrified that the dose and duration of the prednisone treatment wasn't high/long enough and that in the last month I have missed the window of opportunity to save my hearing. To repeat, it did seem to just come back in 1-2 days before, but I am afraid that too many brain cells have died off since then.

Additionally, when I smoke weed to relax, I can't relax anymore as I have increased anxiety in general compared to before, mainly about my concussion symptoms. But worse is that it now amplifies the ringing in my one ear to the point where I no longer enjoy weed. I honestly think there is permanent damage to this part of my brain and my life will never be the same. Added to this, as advised, I can not drink any alcohol. So I have no real outlets of any sort right now. Even hard exercise is out of the question as it actually makes it harder to sleep, and if I have caffeine one day I wind up depressed and crying the next as a compensatory response. And I am talking normal amounts of caffeine.

I am looking for support and reassurance of any kind that these symptoms will improve with time, especially the two emphasized above. I am disturbed by the others, but they are more manageable. Hemp oil helps me sleep and the headaches have actually improved somewhat over the past week, but they barely respond to pain killers and sometimes are made worse by them. It is funny how one symptom will improve and another will emerge anew.

Anyway, as many of you have written on here, post-concussion syndrome has been the single worst experience of my entire life. It has devastated for now my hopes for a normal life in the future. I wish I could go back in time and stop myself. I feel so ashamed and embarrassed that I did this to myself, but life has hit me so hard in the past few years in various ways that I eventually just snapped. I am afraid to tell many of my closest friends what happened, and repeatedly explaining yourself to doctors is humiliating at best.

Now things are much worse than before this happened, and I break down crying several days a week. I do not have a lot of support where I live either, and the people I have around me do not fully understand what I'm going through or what it is like. They just say crap like "hopefully it will go away." But since I am not full of any hope, these are just empty words to me.

Hi SilenceIsSacred,

I had most of the same symptoms as you. You need to go to a doctor to get your anxiety under control. Once I started to get my anxiety figured out, my Tinnitus and other issues began to improve.

Im still bothered with the disconnect feeling(Feelings of unreality at times).

SilenceIsSacred,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear of your struggles.

It appears you need more help with your emotional responses that the actual physical symptoms. Yes, tinnitus and hearing are big issues but, if pred helps, that means there are still basic functions. If you had lost the basic function, the pred would not have allowed your hearing to return to balance. So, the goal should be to find ways to get that balance back without the pred.

There are anti-inflammatory diets that some swear by. They can reduce tinnitus for some.

You may need to consider quitting the weed. Your break could be a cumulative effect of the weed. Some have experienced such events. Prior anxiety/depression etc. can contribute to psychosis, etc. from weed.
Anything that alters brain chemistry is suspect when there is a head injury. If you smoked weed to reduce anxiety, it suggests you already were sensitive to anxiety. A concussion magnifies that sensitivity.

Where there any things going on that helped trigger your event ?

Maybe some CBD with low THC (60% CBD, 3% THC in one strain) would be OK.

Hemp oil can contain high levels of toxins/herbicides/insecticides, depending on the source.

I doubt much could have been done in the psych hospital to treat your concussion. Any dangerous symptoms would have been noticed. Plus, the drugs used to settle a patient can mask or mimic concussion symptoms.

Do you have your medical records from the hospital so you know what meds they gave you ? It would be good to have such records.

You would benefit from finding a therapist/counselor who can help you sort things out and plan a way to move forward with your life. Many of us live with tinnitus and other persistent symptoms. I've had it for decades. Right now, my tinnitus is much louder than the fan in my laptop.

You need to accept that you will be riding a roller coaster of symptoms for a while. Learning to recognize triggers will be a big help. Doctors are not much help. We need to listen to our bodies and brains and learn how to take care of ourselves.

My best to you.

My weed consumption wasn't much, only a gram or so a week. I do not at all think this was the cause. I am not prone to psychosis, and I didn't smoke weed to reduce anxiety, really to reduce boredom and make food more pleasurable. I think the weed was pretty much a wash.

I refused any medications in the hospital because they just make you dependent on them and I had gone down that road before and just wound up a zombie.

The hemp oil I ordered from amazon and it is sourced from Colorado according to the label.

Ironically, I was ready to move on with my life when I got out of the hospital. But my symptoms continued and new ones began to appear.

I am seeing a counselor right now. But I think the anxiety is just being overwhelmed by my situation in general, and the weed is amplifying issues which did not used to exist until the concussion hit. Then again I cry uncontrollably several times a week, and it is difficult to tell how much is a physiological result of the concussion and what is merely a normal reaction to my situation.

The most difficult thing right now is not having a lot of social support where I am living, as I have realized I NEED the support of others more than ever right now and suddenly feel very alone.

The one thing that seems to help my tinnitus die down for many hours is lots of extra sleep. Thankfully I am mostly unemployed right now and can afford to sleep a lot extra if need be as I have support from my family. The one and only good thing that has come out of this so far is that my appreciation for my family and friends has massively increased.

Right now I am taking fish oil, turmeric, and neurotrophin PMG (recommended by my accupuncturist).

Good to know you refused meds. A common psych med is a benzodiazepine (Valium, Ativan, Clonazepam, Diazepam) used to calm down the patient. They are counta-indicated after a concussion. It's good to not have to worry about such a med making things worse for you.

I recommend dropping the turmeric and finding a concentrated curcumin extract with pepper extract. There is very little useful curcumin in turmeric. You'd have to consume a large volume of turmeric to get a therapeutic dose of curcumin.

Add a B-50 Complex and B-12 (methylcobolamin) and D-3. Magnesium (not oxide) is also needed.

You may be low in serotonin. A 100 mg 5-HTP may help.

Excessive sleep is not good even though it seems to help with the tinnitus. Quality sleep at normal times is important. The brain needs to maintain its normal sleep cycle so it cycles through all of the stages of sleep. REM and slow wave sleep stages are important.

The PCS brain needs good stimulation for good blood flow. Excessive sleep counters this. You need to find a way to keep your mind mildly active. It will also help with your anxiety if you have productive things to keep your mind occupied. This is also a good way to tolerate tinnitus.

The concussed brain is often very sensitive to chemicals, good or bad, so be careful what chemical you introduce to your brain. btw, There is no research that supports that PMG supplement. I'm not saying it's bad. Just no research says it does what it says it does.

Social support can be a challenge. Most people have a hard time understanding PCS and can often discount the struggles of PCS.

The sounds of social settings can make tinnitus worse. My tinnitus is real bad this morning and my right ear just started a second higher frequency. C6# (1100 Hz) in my left ear and something higher in my right like an E6 (1300 Hz). But, the best way to deal with it is to learn to ignore it or stay distracted.

Went to the audiologist today. I have significant hearing loss above 4khz in one ear, the other ear is good. Doctor said my loss on a scale from 1-10 would be considered a 2. I don't totally agree but it is by no means extreme.

Going on another round of prednisone to see if it reverses the hearing loss and tinnitus like before. The audiologist suggested a hearing aid. She said that the nerve that transfers sound to my brain is not conducting electrical impulses well. She said it could be the damage to my auditory cortex itself, but there was no way to tell.

***** ******* ******. I'm 28 years old.

Single ear hearing loss above a B7 or C8, the last octave on a full piano keyboard, will not change your life. Many have similar hearing loss. It is common as one reaches 40 years old to lose hearing in the high ranges. You just lost it a bit earlier. But, if the pred helps it, as I said, it is not totally lost. Resolving the inflammation will help. You may have nerve conduction issues than can heal over time. B-12, folic acid (in a B-50 Complex) and such can help nerves heal.

Please don;t lose hope.

Sorry to hear you're going through all of this. Just so you know, much of what you're experiencing is common, so it doesn't surprise me that you're "here".

It took me years of steady work to get back to regular functioning, after my last concussion in 2004. In fact, I'm just now feeling like things are "normal" again. Actually, they're better than normal. They're better than ever.

Concussion/TBI recovery is a process. It's not always pretty, but our systems are designed to change as we go through life. When our brain is injured, it sometimes needs to "rewire" -- basically a learning experience. We all have to learn our ways through life ("you live and learn, or you don't live long," as they say).

Sounds to me like the worst part of your situation is the fear and anxiety around it. That sent me over the edge a bunch of times, but I was over-reacting to a temporary situation. My own "explosions" resembled seizures, more than psychotic breaks, but they were very much tied to my overall stress level. The more I got stressed about my situation, the worse my symptoms got. I wasn't doing myself any favors.

Also, prednisone is a problem for me - I can't do it. It puts me on edge, amps up my anxiety, and it turns me into a rage-a-holic. It also wrecks my impulse control. Not good. It might be impacting your frame of mind, as well. You may want to reconsider.

Basically, time is on your side. Concussion symptoms sometimes take a while to clear out, but they can. Even my persistent issues I've learned to live with and manage, so they don't ruin my life. They just make it more interesting.

Good luck with your recovery. Be kind to yourself and your brain. These things take time.

Probably should have clarified that I was only on prednisone for 6 days and now for 8 a month later and that'll probably be it. I felt good on prednisone overall and in fact sometimes better than good as some people feel. 20mg/day is a relatively low dose.

Some of my symptoms have been getting better over the last week, including:

- Tinnitus - less frequent and intense overall and not activated when smoking weed or listening to relatively loud music as much
- Sleep has been noticeably better most nights
- Few nightmares or unwanted lasting dream impacts
- Fewer concentration issues
- Somewhat less anxiety, and anxiety amplified less by smoking weed
- Less intense and less frequent headache
- Less prone to crying

The effects are still there, but at just before the 2 month mark I think I am feeling somewhat better finally. But as I said, the muffled hearing is scaring the living crap out of me right now.

Appreciate all the replies. Any support and encouragement helps. And yes, the worry and fear about my future is the worst part of the situation. Were God to drop down and inform me that all this was temporary I would be able to just relax and ride it out.

I did find this, can't post links so you will have to google it. ---

The author is Timothy Hain, a professor emeritus of medicine at Northwestern Medical School. Other than this I can't find any real statistical type statements.

If Hain's research suggests healing in 3 to 9 months, you are still well within that time span. That suggests it is temporary.....

BUT, you continue to do things that negatively impact your symptoms. Loud music is a problem. Even 'relatively' loud music gives me concern.

"Weed causes less anxiety than it did" So, stop the weed.

You say you are not prone to psychosis yet from your comments were hospitalized and have experience with psychotropic medications that made you a zombie.

If I was worried about my future, I'd try to change my present. No weed or loud music. Give your brain a rest from chemicals and sound stimulation.

"Doc, every time I smash my thumb with a hammer, it hurts. I like using hammers. What should I do ?"

btw, Upper cervical chiropractors use Dr Hain's article to sell their upper cervical chiro treatments claiming the common issue is the upper neck. There are links to finding an upper cervical chiro in the Vitamins sticky at the top.