"All I know is that PCS has destroyed my family relationships. I had PCS for 3 months now. I wasn't knocked out, but I had all symptoms: diiziness, sentivity to light/noise, depression, irritability, unberable headaches/migraines, etc. I may have had second impact as well. After 3 months, I still have cognitive issues, which include attention, memory, processing, learning, etc. They have come up in nueropsyc tests -- above average IQ but extremly below avg memory, etc. The worst is the fatigue.

I am a law student and I have always done well in school. But of course not now. I was scheduled to take the bar this year, but all my plans have changed.

From the begining, my family didn't understand or believe me to a point where I have speculated that my anger toward them has exacerbated the concussion. Everyone thinks that it is all in my head b/c I have a normal MRI/CAT. To cope, I have cut ties with most of my family.

I have bought a DVD titled "the hidden epidemic," which may help my cause. It is a film all about PCS. You should all check it out. I am hoping people will start to believe me. Life is not good, but at least I started to do Tai-Chi again"


I too, did not get knocked out. And in my neurological assessment I scored 99th percentile on most everything. Except my multitasking is officially impaired. But luckily my family and my friends do not doubt that I am miserable. I know how angry i got when doctors acted like I was faking or exaggerating. I could not handle my friends or family giving me that ****. I am so sorry. Im not sure if ive said this to you in a separate thread, but MRIs and CT scans of people with PCS do not typically show anything. Your doctors know this, but again, its standard practice to tell the patient they should be fine, and that the CT/MRI show nothing to explain the symptoms your having. Its crummy that any doctor would do that but they do.

Hi,
You may be interested in researching Neurofeeback for the treatment of Post Concussion Syndrom. I understand Post Concussive Syndrome can improve with the LENS Neurofeedback system. Take a look at this site:
http://www.ochslabs.com/intro.php

There are other Neurofeedback and Biofeedback treatments, I suggest you Google Neurofeedback.

The LENS system seems to be unique in that the patient is only required to sit there. The LENS system helps rebalance the patients natural brain waves.

Good Luck.

Hi, I know exactly what you mean. I was told by the ER doctor that he knew alll about people like me as he had worked for an insurance company!! My MRI and C/T scan were fine. I am now in my 6th year of PCS. I can cope with most things like I know my IQ is not what it was, I can cover up forgetting things, but can't handle the remaining fatigue. I am a legal executive which is like a para legal in the US and do property conveyancing and subdivisions etc. I can now only work 3 hour days. I had several bangs on the head, supposedly minor, 2 of them only 6 weeks apart. I have had to explain to the neurologist about concussion being cumulative. I have ended up being divorced - my husband and I split in the first 6 months. I have found that I have constantly had to justify my symptons and about 2 years ago went to Australia and had a QEEG - and at last there was some physical evidence of the injury! I now have an explanation for my tiredness. Unfortunately as I am over 40, female and it has been longer than 2 years the odds of recovery are not so good for me. I believe that the higher your IQ pre accident the worse the tiredness is as you are still trying to function at the same level and pace. As you are obviously young I would expect you to improve slowly. Make sure you rest before you are totally tired - and I should practice what I preach!!!

Hey Owen,
My son also felt that multi tasking was something he noted to be very difficult and frustrating while he was healing. Hang in there. I also think your prognosis is good. It good be up to a year, but you will gradually see some improvement.
Nancy

Hmmm. Well with 99th percentile scores I would have hoped you could figure out how to quote properly. As it stands your quoted text is very confusing. I read the whole thing before realizing that you were quoting someone else.

Just wanted to congratulate you on those scores. I hope you don't consider yourself impaired with scores like that. Although I don't remember exactly what kinds of scores I got before my first serious head injury, I think I scored pretty well with 99th percentiles on many of those tests also. Even the memory oriented ones. Of course the point of the tests was not to detect deficits due to a head trauma. They were more IQ and psychology oriented.

In the neuropsych tests that I had done a few years after my initial injury I scored IIRC in the 3rd percentile on many tests and most of my scores were below the 'mentally retarded' range. I think the only score that I had above 50 was on the serial number memory test which I have heard is often spared in head injuries for some strange reason. On some tests I was told that I set some kind of record for the lowest score of anyone he had ever tested. What an honor . On some of the tests I could give the doctor no information whatsoever. Like I remember one where he read me some kind of story and then he would ask questions about it as soon as he finished. I could remember *nothing*. Not one thing. Not one question about the story could I answer. So much for reading comprehension.

Actually part of the point of getting the neuropsych testing was to try to pinpoint my particular weaknesses to see for instance what kind of jobs I might want to avoid attempting when returning to work. The problem is I did so badly at virtually all the tests it was hard for the neuropsychologist to make any useful recommendations. He said that my biggest problem was 'learning', and that I should try to find a job where I didn't have to learn anything. We both laughed at that. And neither of us could think of any examples. I was incredulous when he actually tried to tell me that I should explain my learning deficits to my employer and ask him to try to accommodate me. Yeah. *That's* gonna happen. No problem.

I know my reading comprehension used to be good. I scored a 760 (almost perfect) on the verbal section of my SAT (in the late 80s). That probably doesn't mean much these days since the test has changed a lot since then, but at the time it was mostly a vocabulary and reading comprehension test. There was no essay at that time. So I was obviously better than most people at reading comprehension pre-injury. And now...well. My reading comprehension abilities are so low that there isn't even a score for it. So yes, you are lucky. All I did was fall over on my bike without a bike helmet, smashing the right side of my head very hard against the pavement. I wasn't even in a car accident or anything. I was always a nerdy intellectual type. Now I'm an extremely stupid nerdy intellectual type.

Owen, I forgot to tell you - you are young - be patient - you will get better slowly and it will happen. My GP told me that he PCS in his last year at med school - he was hit on the head playing rugby - he got better. He said he had to go and hide on a farm for weeks.

Gojirasan, I agree with you - your old self has gone and I have had to discover a new me. I was an extravert and a very impatient person. I didn't tolerate anybody who was slow thinking or who couldn't do something after being shown or told how to do anything once! I thought that they were either not trying or were lazy. I was a picky perfectionist. You can imagine the shock to my system. I think my recovery (what there is of it) has been slowed by my inability to be kind to myself as I have treated myself to the same impatience! Now that I have come to grips with that I think I am actually a nicer person. I miss the social life that I had - my worst problem is not being able to stay awake all day - I so wish that I could do that as I feel that I am missing so much of life. I have a bad learning disability not as bad as yours though - maybe this is your claim to fame! --only picked up when I went private to a neuropsychologist in Australia. I just joke about lucky I knew everything before I hit my head - I wasn't ko'd either. It was a very very minor bump x 2. When I am tired I don't remember a lot - it is the immediate things like "did I just take my pills I have absolutely no idea" - I then check to see if the glass is wet!

I used to talk a lot - I think that this trait has become more exagerated!!!! Hate forgetting what I was talking about mid sentence though!!

I understand how you feel. My husband [and I]knew nothing about TBI or PCS and what was to follow. When I had a siezure about one month after the accident he thought I was posessed by the devil. That was 2 years ago and I don't think I can forgive that bit of ignorance.