People recover I think is my motto. After experiencing a head injury two year ago, I too notice the differences. I am kinda forgetful, not my self. Not happy and experience more anxiety and depression. Plus I experience headaches/migraines in ways I have never. You hope it will all go back and be the same....but I don't know...I'm sold. Its coming up to 2 years for me. I really have changed...and I consider it not for the good. Life has become more of a challenge.

Your condition is only permanent if you accept it as being permanent. If you're strong enough to accept your injuries and move on with your life then that's great, but that's not for everyone. It wasn't for me.

The brain is the most fragile and least understood organ in the body, but it is also one of the most elastic and resilient. I am not back to 100% now, but I am close. My injury occurred 6 years ago this April. For the first 4 years I gained back almost nothing. In the last 2 years I have gained back almost everything. There is no expiration date on the prospect of healing.

Don't. Give. Up.

Great post McGee,thank you,thank you,i love your post it gives me inspiration thank you very much.

Hi there!!

What fantastic news, I am sooooo pleased for you!!

How did it happen? Was it any kind of treatment or did it just happen?

If I remember correctly you were wanting to be a teacher - are you back working towards it? Tell all!

That is such fantastic news - you give me hope!!!!

Lynlee

No, it definitely didn't just happen... took a lot of work from some very skilled/gifted individuals. And truthfully, I still have a good ways more to go before I'm completely healthy, it's just that the PCS stuff has really fallen by the wayside as of late. My brain is pretty much back "on", and I'm not constantly psychoanalyzing myself like I used to. The psychological and emotional trauma of that moment in time has lost its punch, so to speak, and my brain has started to move on with its life. I've gone with it.

I can tell you what worked for me, but what worked for me might well not work for someone else. Here's the key as I see it though: I believe that for each of us, there is a reason that the brain isn't healing "like it's supposed to". There is something (or some number of things) within the body that is creating an environment that is putting that healing on hold, or making it progress very very slowly. It could be psychological trauma (I personally suspect this is quite common), it could be a nutrient deficiency, it could be a broken element in your immune or endocrine system, it could be a vertebrae out of line, really, it could be a whole lot of things. This sounds odd, but some of my biggest gains came after I drastically changed my diet due to the fact that a nutritionist told me I was having trouble digesting all sorts of foods. So I stopped eating all of those foods and a large portion of my symptoms disappeared right then and there. You wouldn't think the brain and the stomach would have that direct of a relationship with one another, but for me they do.

It's not a matter of "the arm bone is connected to the shoulder bone, the shoulder bone is connected to the rib bone" and so on, it's a matter of the body being connected to the body. Most of the people on here have done a myriad of tests... CT Scans, MRIs, etc... but these tests are rarely of any help at all because medical knowledge of how the brain heals itself in this day and age is just woefully inadequate. My personal suggestion is sort of an "easier said than done" kind of thing... try to look beyond the brain. See what else is going on. See if you can find a doctor (or an alternative practitioner, if you're into that kind of thing) who works on weird cases, and see if they can find anything concrete that's going wrong in your body other than the persistent dizziness/memory/anger/whatever else problems. Maybe some gland in your body is all goofed up, or you're allergic to something you eat all the time, or your liver isn't detoxing properly, or something like that. The end goal is that your brain heals, but the key to that happening... or the key to that being able to start happening, might well lie somewhere else.

Just my 2 cents. Like I said, I'm not cured, but I'm a whole hell of a lot closer now than I was a year ago, and EONS beyond where I was 3 years ago.

If any of you folks live in Colorado I know some good people you might want to try out. Send me a message if you're interested.

thanks for you input

the healing is so slow some times its hard to notice the improvement its important to recognize, limitations but not except that you can do nothing about them neoplasticity is now science fact, I remember an old black and white movie with john wyne were he was paralyzed and he kept repeating a mantra ( I,m gona move that toe ) and one day he did

thanks again

Thank you for that - just from curiousity- can you tell me what kind of food group you have elininated from your diet?

It does sound like you found the trigger.

I have noticed that since I stopped working I have been feeling somewhat better - it is like I have removed the biggest stress from my life. My brain has been able to think faster and it is mainly the tiredness now to deal with.

Do you feel that you are a different person - ie. more understanding and tolerant of others now - just curious about that too.

Again I am so pleased for you. All the best for your future.

Lynlee

good questions,and another great post by PCS Mcgee

Well, I've come to learn that I'm exceptionally sensitive to all sorts of allergens/toxins (I'm working on this with a specialist currently) so it was A LOT of foods. Basically, the diet that I was told to adopt then (and still have now, with few notable additions) allowed for no dairy, no grains, no unnatural sugars, no normal potatoes, no corn, no soy, no fruits other than apples or grapefruit. Basically I could eat beans, sweet potatoes, vegetables, and apples. A tough transition to make, but it worked for me so I'm not complaining.

I have other conditions that have always been there but went undiagnosed until recently though. I've got a thyroid condition, and my adrenals were under performing, and I was deficient in vitamin D, and I'm sure I'll find all sorts of other stuff in the coming months that I need to work on as well. Really, prior to my injury it's pretty clear that I was a walking house of cards, I just had no idea that was the case until the whole thing came tumbling down.

Along with these findings, I did some light therapy that was abundantly helpful (I'd recommend that stuff above all else, though the only doctor who does it is in Colorado), as well as some craniosacral therapy that really helped out (I sincerely doubt this would have been notably effective without the light therapy coming beforehand), and some other stuff as well that's helped put the bits, pieces, and massive chunks back together. Like I said, I'm not all the way there yet, but I'm much more there than where I was before, and that's enough to get my life moving again.

As far as "what it's like", or "what I'm like" is concerned... the best way I can put it is this: When you're in that PCS mode, or at least when I was really in PCS mode, you experience the world through your injury. You're in this trauma-centric universe, where any time you're looking at something or thinking about something or talking to someone you're always also thinking about what's going on in your head. It's like everything you do, see, and experience comes with a side order of "what the hell is going on? Why won't this stop?" It might not be a side order even, for me that was often the main course.

That's the main thing that's gone away for me. Sure, I still think about my brain a lot, but my brain isn't my whole life. I can have conversations with people and actually think about what they're saying, make a connection with them on some level, as opposed to just watching them talk like I'm watching a tv show. I wouldn't say that I feel like a different person now per se... it's more that now I feel like an actual person, whereas before I often felt just hollow. Like I wasn't even real.

Hi PCS McGee,

You have had a very interesting experience. Great that you've gotten through that negative thought cycle! Any idea how that occurred? Did you have to practice "letting go", or did it just begin to happen for no apparent reason?

A little off track, but have you also had chronic urticaria or angioedema? Which led to discovery of sensitivities and/or allergies, thyroid difficulty, and deficiency in vitamin D? If no, never mind

Thanks for sharing!
Shez