Brain Injury Spasticity: Spasticity Problems Missed After TBI

Brain Injury Spasticity: Craig Part Twelve 

Craig talks about his problems with brain injury spasticity in his shoulders and his elbowsand  the therapy he received for this.

After you’ve had your neuropsychological evaluation and you get the results in April, they figure out you need some therapy?

Correct.

So tell me about your therapy.

I have some severe brain injury spasticity problems in my shoulders and my elbows and so, probably about, 100 days of that,  every other day.  Speech language, therapy which of course you know runs out pretty quick.  So I got involved in a system called interactive metronome, which I’m actually one of the clinicians for now.

It was the first thing that helped the impulsivity and actually timed my brain to,  to for my body to be able to control it.  A lot of cognitive rehab, a lot of relearning stuff.  I was never a great speller even though I have an advanced degree but it got even worse.  Almost a type of dyslexia except I would see rather than a B would look like a P.  It was like kind of a weird dyslexia.

I was a avid reader and I couldn’t read as much because of headaches.  The more strained I get, my eyesight starts going bad so I still have some visual things.  And I remember the hearing, the humming for, a good year and a half.  Working (with) 60 folks with some disability, the stimuli that I would leave with at the end of the day was overwhelming.

Let’s break that out into some subparts, okay?  We’ve got,   the physical issue with brain injury spasticity, and we’ll talk about some other physical issues you might have.  You’ve get some cognitive therapy, some behavioral help, speech language and then, some of the neurological things.  So first, let’s speak about brain injury spasticity.  First question, obvious question, is how could they miss brain injury spasticity?

Well, probably because I stopped going to the doctor’s.  At a certain point, going to the doctor’s every other day I just, it was enough. I mean, because after the suicidal thing,  I thought I better figure this out because they weren’t going to.

How did your wife miss the spasticity?

I sent her running pretty quick, with my impulsive behavior.  I was downright mean. I would just say some of the meanest things and so within a few weeks I did a good job of alienating her.

Let’s, let’s talk about when you say spasticity describe for us exactly what the symptom was.

Well, I couldn’t put my arm all the way out.  In the beginning it was in a sling but, I could never fully extend it.  I still have, like I’m noticing when I play football or something, I notice it still kind of hurts in here.  They think there’s some calcium on there.  But if I have that done I’m going to go to Mexico and have the work done.

Next in Part Thirteen – Physical Problems Masked Traumatic Brain Injury Symptoms