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Mild Tbi Possible

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out_here04

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For almost a year, I have been rated 100 percent schedular (temporary not permanent/total) for anxiety/depression. My "long-suffering" road to the rating began about 15 years ago on active-duty when I began complaining about bouts of lethargy, lack of concentration, confusion, muddled thinking, difficulty prioritizing, difficulty accomplishing tasks or a general lack of or stunting of what I have come to know as "executive functioning" or some similar term. I began re-reading sentences and paragraphs several times to get the meaning. Writing was and still is a chore, even though I have written well on many occasions, all the while thinking no one but me knows how much effort it takes. I ran across a term also that involves having to explain anything and everything and that seems to match up with the convoluted way I sometimes have to use to express myself. I think the term begins with "con...", too. I apologize for how hard it may make to follow this post.

Besides a self-thwarted suicide plan back when my symptoms bounced up against job performance, with subsequent tracking in the mental health pipeline, and two surgeries for chronic sinusitus and finally being diagnosed for sleep apnea, I STILL seem to have cognitive functioning issues. I have been a multiple-list-maker for years and constantly seek out planning/time management tools, trying them and giving up on them. I am a pretty good writer but doing so is like squeezing water out of turnips. My brain or forehead and scalp muscles (around my forehead, ears and down my neck)seem to tense up and there seems to be a lack of fluidity in doing this. Thinking is like pushing play-dough through one of those shape-makers instead of like water going through a garden hose. Getting anything done is like swimming upstream through molasses. I have virtually no self-motivation, self-discipline, even though I want to do so much. This resulted in me barely making it to military retirement (thank God I did) but I had begun getting into low-level administrative disciplinary actions taken against me intermittently and especially towards the end. I actually was more or less threatened into retirement even though my high year of tenure would have given me another two and a half years on active-duty. I would have continued to serve despite the effort it took. I considered challenging some bogus methods to "railroad" me but was advised not to by a military chaplain and others, plus I was too tired to fight any more. I tried civilian employment but was let go after about three months. I have not worked since which was five years ago. I fear trying again but might try some school work of some sort.

I ran across the term "mild TBI" while googling about my symptoms. My anxiety/depression is service-connected per my rating but I/docs never connected it to an event I believe could have been the root of everything to follow (and I think this was aggravated by resulting high stress levels and by separately by a subsequent PTSD stressor event that I have had validated through a buddy/commander statement with VA).

The reason I think I may have mild TBI is this: During a military exercise overseas much earlier in my career, I fell and hit my head falling out of a top-bunk rack. The floor was tile on concrete type. Laugh, I kind of do. I remember that I woke up some time later having missed or come in extremely late for my shift. It is a bit embarrassing to say this, but the symptoms seem to have originated then and there. No one in my chain noticed as I was working with a foreign national who did not speak English (he did give me some pretty intense scowls)/ I did not report this caring more at the time about staying out of trouble for being "AWOL" or "missing movement" or whatever the UCMJ could have thrown at me, or at least getting wrote up. I had been a "super troop" and supervisors at my home bases thought highly of me. After that, things began to change.

I am going to bring this up to my VAMC primary care and mental health providers at my appointments in the next week or so. I have wanted to get to the bottom of this for a very long time and feel this may be part of it.

After all that, my questions (besides any other thoughts welcomed from my explanation) are:

What types of VA or otherwise therapy/assistance are available for mild-TBI?

Any recommended websites (VA or other) would help me better understand these symptoms and how veterans or others cope with this?

I am not 100 percent certain if I would truly be diagnosed with mild-TBI but from what my gut tells me, I do.

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I am scheduled for a tbi screening with va psychologist friday, and separately with the tbi "specialist" end of month(i guess if i 'pass' go from that process), this according to my psychiatrist who i saw earlier this week. not sure how the two are connected but i will know more by the weekend. whether or not i am an oif/oef veteran (i am both) i don't see why that should factor in my receiving treatment, if in fact i can be screened in as having symptoms of mild tbi. i think i do and have in my service medical records from years ago trying to get to the bottom of the symptoms and have very thick medical records where i was routed through ent, psych, and even had the one mri that showed what may have been a white matter lesion and virchow-robin space irregularity. the smartass neuropsych doc called it a UBO, unidentified brain object (unless this is a real term they use) but although i have short-term memory loss problems i can remember certain things from way back like when i asked about a pet scan and he called them "university playtoys". that was around 1995. now i see there is a study being done by university hospital in st louis and would gladly offer my tired brain for eval.

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thanks pete, just got on my laptop (it had it's own tbi this a.m.) but i'm on way to the appt. thanks for seeming to always being around when i need a friend or support.

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just an update in case anybody else is in similar situation with tbi screening process:

i had my tbi pre-screen (for cognitive functioning) with a psychologist (non-phd) this morning (friday) and for the most part i did ok. meaning that the little tests, which i told the examiner did not reflect day to day life, did not show any serious abnormalities in executive or frontal lobe damage. i was average in most categories with a slight lower in one (naming as many animals as i could in a minute or something). i did tell psychologist that while performing these that i believed that my mind had to work harder that it felt that i had to "wrench" more or less the information instead of it coming fluidly. i have another appointment on the 31st with, i think, a va/tbi specialist. i did mention a previously unreported with the docs this morning a concussion i had back in early 80s, a requirement to go to the next step, i guess, in possibly getting a follow-up mri and, who knows, maybe a pet scan or more state-of-the-art look at my brain functions.

i was in a pretty anxious, agitated state and the psychologist had to direct me to keep on track, but i got through the tests. what evolved was that i told psychologist that although i scored pretty "average" that i believed before the concussion i was "above average" in intelligence. i cited pre-service aptitude and functioning and even pre-concussion reputation as being a "super troop" who was thought very highly of. after the concussion my performance was not as consistently stellar and my military career was basically one of some high peaks and some very low lows.

all that to say, I KNOW i am a different person now, thank god i made it to retirement and got enough documented in my service medical records (thanks to the advice of my basic training sergeant; no thanks to his telling us that if we were suicidal go ahead, he didn't need us in his air force (i almost laugh about that but not really). but it was by no means easy. like i told the psych doc today, when i first complained about my memory, lack of concentration, lack of mental agility, etc and went through ent for sinusitus and mental health for psych reasons i was only trying to get to the bottom of things and become a better servicemember. and the only reason i went to va today was my continuing quest to get to the bottom, i mean i surfaced with chronic sinusitus and anxiety/depression issues and those were attributed to problems on the job, but WHERE did the real issue begin? i still believe the answer lies in tbd, even if i have somehow maintained a somewhat respectable cognitive functioning.

out_here04

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Thanks for the update.

Just for general information purposes, my memory also tests in the normal range. However, I am required to have a fudiciary(the VA will not send me comp money it goes to my wife) because based on the whole of my test scores(complete neuro-psych testing) the evaluater stated "he might forget to pay his bills". My memory is horrible.

So how does my memory test normal, yet my memory is terrible? My "working memory" is horrible. It was explained to me like this.

I have slowed cognative proccessing. So while all the information of daily life like what my eyes, ears, and other sences, plus the other information like the things I'm thinking about, emotions and such all go to my brain, it is proccessed slowly. So if I walk into the house carrying my keys and set them on top of the TV, I might not be able to remember where I put them and they are lost. This is because with everything my brain is trying to keep up with, where I put my keys is never registered into my memory. Basically, I never knew I put my keys on the TV. I don't FORGET where I put them, I don't KNOW I even put them down.

I don't know if any of that was usefull to you or anyone. There is obviously more to it than that and I really don't understand all of it. But I can say without a doubt that my memory tests normal but is horrible and the full scale testing made believers out of the evaluators.

I hope you can get the answers your looking for through continued appointments.

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Thanks, time. It does make a lot of sense to me. I have to put my keys and wallet in a cupboard next to a doorway into the kitchen on the way out. I really identify with a lot you just said. My credit is crap and I just recently went through a process with an IRS local tax advocate to settle up with 16 years of unfiled or unpaid back taxes. If the military would have known, I'm sure my security clearance would have been called into question. It was, in and of itself, a great source of anxiety and shame for me, but I am trying to recover from that, too. My wife had two moderate strokes in her 30s and was, understandably, kind of in the same boat with me in regards to getting things important done. Blind leading the blind comes to mind.

Googling from your suggestion about "neuro-psych testing" I ran across a 47-minute streaming video from:

Presented by Teri Horowitz, PhD at the "Diagnosis Brain Tumor- You Are Not Alone" conference at the Neuroscience Institute at JFK Medical Center, Edison, NJ Oct 15,2005. Sponsored by: Musella Foundation The Brain Tumor Society Central NJ Brain Tumor Support Group Monmouth & Ocean Brain Tumor Support Group

...that, while aimed towards brain tumors, does a great job, I think so far, of at least explaining the tbi testing environment.

It's at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2020430531982062183

Thanks for the encouragement.

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