Hi so happy I found this website!
I am a mom looking for help in dealing with my sons TBI.
We live in a rural area and do not have any resources.
He is 14 months into his TBI. He also had 4 Craniotomy’s.
Last one was this past July.
He was doing very well until this past December, very agitated, angry, would get over stimulated very easily.
He is 28 lives with us now, and he has two children 5 & 3 that are with us part of the time.
Christmas was horrible due to his behavior, he was out of work and was just released last March. He went back to his job which is a road worker.
He was so happy to be back to work after sitting around for a year. Now two months in he hates it, he is a road worker, and most of his job has been traffic control where he stands for 8 hours and holds the sign. He says he is quitting and going back to his maintenance job which would open the door for him to go back to drinking. He seems to not be making good sound logical choices. We can’t discuss anything with him, without him blowing up. He will not go to counseling nor take anything for his depression. He seems to go in and out of this faze since December but now seems stuck here.
He seems to be distant or detached emotionally from his children whom he adored before his accident. He is also fixated on his game that is on his phone. Yesterday he was on it from 1:00 am to 8:00 pm. Is this normal behavior being 14 months in?

Yosemitelady,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear about your son.

There is no normal for your son. Every TBI is different. But, his behavior is not unusual or even unexpected.

Drinking is not advised for somebody with his neurological condition.

Even if he will not consider meds, maybe he will consider vitamin supplements. The Vitamin sticky at the top has a good regimen. The injured brain needs extra nutrition for the long term. The regimen will not have any side effects other than improving his well being.

If he is concerned about maintaining contact with his kids and there is a custody agreement, the agreement may be able to include a no drinking clause. Just a thought. It could also backfire so be careful.

btw, I have a yosemite/tahoe/salmon-river/bitter-root daughter. I know what it means to be away from medical care.

Thank you!
I just saw that Sticky this morning and I am going to try those. As far as his kids go, they are in our home half of the week, and his interactions are very few and far between, where as he used to be very doting over them. I am hoping this will change.

After reading more through the vitamin list I also notoced the resources that you posted! Thank you so much! You are a Godsend!

Just to be clear, a craniotomy is a surgical operation in which a bone flap is removed from the skull to access the brain. One could be from a severe TBI to relieve bleeding. Four would be extremely rare. For what underlying condition did he undergo four craniotomies?

"Is this normal behavior being 14 months in?"

No.

"We live in a rural area and do not have any resources."

If there are surgeons available to perform four craniotomy procedures my guess is there are some PhD level psychologists that can do an assessment,

Best to you all

About 6 weeks after his initial injury, he started having spinal fluid leak out of his nose due to all the fractures in his face, they poked a hole in his spinal fluid sack. Should have been one surgery. Unfortunately every 48 hours for the next week he had 3 emergency surgeries. 1st one was due to a brain bleed. 2nd one was air getting into the brain due to another pathway that the fractures made, 3rd one was unknown swelling in the brain, and they decided to leave the front part of his skull off for 3 months. 4th one was reattaching the skull . It was pure hell. Hospital is 70 miles away as well as resources. He will not go to counseling. I have put in a call to his Neuro-surgeon.

Hi again, I am confused by the vitamins. Can he take the Mega Mens plus all the others even if Mega Mens has 100% of some of the others you listed?

The RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) is designed to prevent malnutrition, not to support optimum health let alone brain health. The Mega Men is to catch all of the odds and ends that cannot be taken individually and are often missing in our diets. The extra Bs are the most important, B-12, niacin, thiamine. The Omega 3 fish oil is important. The anti-oxidants fight the oxidative stress the injured brain endures.