confused

[crow899]

suffered head  injury 1 year ago, have suffered from lack of sleep, chronic headaches, blurred vision, speech problems, short term memory problems, lack of balance, numb hands and numb feet. Finally had MRI with Gado and the diagnosis came back as within normal limits, what does this mean? Because I am not normal as I was before. Please help, thank you.

[Leslie040]

   Since my injury ,over 14 months  ago my memory has improved  somewhat,but the numbness in my hands and feet is actually worse at times, I was tested months ago for nerve damage to both my hands and feet, and told both were severe ,is it possible it could become worse instead of better, I am feeling more clumsy than ever.                            thank you

[hundborg]

From what I have been told it should stabilise or get better, getting worse needs to be investigated. However, it can take more than a year - at least up to two years to fully recover. In my opinion, it is worth your piece of mind to get it checked out and to try and make as many changes that are good for brain functioning as well - increased sleep, water, omegas, nutrition, exercise, decrease stresses, etc.

See if your doctor can refer you to a neurospecialist - at best it would be good if the team /specialist you were under can be contacted and you can be followed up by them as they will know what happened originally - do you have any old documentation that lists who this was? If you are on their files it might be possible for you to ring the clinic direct and see if you can get an appointment.

I spelt that site wrong if it did not come up properly on a search - it is lumosity. It does have some attention exercises that are reported to improve the attention skills needed to drive effectively.

There is also research to show that there is a relationship between driving anxiety and driving skill - i.e. we get more anxious when we feel we do not have the skill (are told by others that we don't and believe it, is also included in this). Increased anxiety about our performance when driving can decrease the cognitive resources we have at the time (particularly working memory), however can also increase our efforts to succeed - i.e. we focus and concentrate more on trying to avoid an error - this on a long drive can also lead to fatigue, which has an impact on cognitive performance.  The less demanding the driving situation the more we can use anxiety to help, the more complex the driving situation the more likely it will interfere with processing the situation and our capability could change in the other direction. So, worrying about it and the consequences, which can result in paying attention to what does not feel right and errors we are making can also be adding to the problem.

I would get it checked out to make sure everything is ok, and until then maybe only drive short distances in low traffic and good conditions if you can. The more we worry about things and aviod doing things about it the harder it becomes to do the things we need to do to take the worry away. The best thing for worry is to confront it and check out the reality of whether it is an issue or not. Good if there is nothing there, and good if there is something that needs attending to.

Also maybe the lumosity site could be a way to check out your abilities in this area and whether they are changing with increased trials on the exercises?

Good luck, let me know how you get on.

[Leslie040]

Thank you for your help , when I was injured itook a severe blow to the head , severe enough that it injured several parts of my body badly enogh for surgery,although i continue to function in everyday life , it seems as though it is actally becoming more difficult mentally.I find myself making mistakes such as not paying close enogh attention when driving and quite often forgetting where i am driving to. shouldnt this be getting better not worse its been a while since this happened.                                                thank you  

[hundborg]

Re: MRI - I was told that although they are better than CATT and can show up where specific problems exist, they are also not sensitive enough to always show things like bruising and lower grade effects of spine / head injury or deeper brain structures.

Sometimes the neural pathways can be interrupted by the injury and you need to build new ones or the route has changed and it takes longer for the message to get round to the right place at first. The more practice with tasks and just more time can speed up the capacity of the brain to develop new neural links. They also told me that it can take 2 years to recover from all the effects of head injury even if there are no permanent problems.

I found a good site that helps with cognitive rehabilitation - luminosity - there are fun games that build skills in memory, cognitive control, attention (and vision), and information processing. Check it out, it has a free trail for 7 days then is very reasonable monthly price to continue with a 30 session rehab programme that has scientific backing and researched outcomes.

The more we can do to help ourselves and our body heal the better. Trust your instincts, there are not always answers to our questions as everyone is different and the science is still growing and learning about what is going on in the brain and how it is affected by and how it rehabilitates after injury. good luck.

P.S not sure how you feel about coffee but it can help sharpen your brain functioning - not to excess or even regularly but every now and again it can make a difference to mental functioning for some people.

[crow899]

     I am not due to see my neurologist for a while,what i wondered is , it seems lately that when  people speak to me , it seems like i have a delayed reaction before i comprehend what they are saying , also my vision seems worse than ever, could this be a side affect of the  neurontin or could my  symtoms possibly get worse over time .                thank you

[crow899]

Thank you , you have been incredibly helpful to me, I really appreciate it.

[DrNoopurMD]

Hi,
The most common cause of bony island is osteomyelitis. It usually occurs as a complication of trauma or sinusitis.
Early features are islands of normal bone with increased or decreased intensity. It can lead to brain abscess in the later stages. Please discuss this with your neurologist as soon as possible. Take care!

[crow899]

   my brain scan showed a small incidental bone island in the supraorbital right frontal  bone what does this mean .       thank you

[crow899]

thank you neuroligist has put me neurontin ,maybe it will help  ihope   thank you for your response

[Niffer991]

It sounds like a head injury for sure to me and maybe because it was not a severe one that it didn't show out of normal range of the MRI. What you can go by is how you feel.

[DrNoopurMD]

Hi,
How are you?
These could also be the symptoms of migraine. Migraine causes headaches which can be accompanied with numbness, blurry vision and speech difficulties.
Migraines can sometimes be triggered after head injury.Migraine may or may not show changes in MRI.
Please discuss this possibility with your neurologist. Do keep us posted!