Yet more thoughts on TBI and mental illness

This morning (6/9/9), I took a gander at the ways people have been finding their ways to this blog since I first started it over a year ago.

• 38 people got here by looking for info about TBI/brains and anger/rage
• 86 got here just searching on tbi
• 156 got here by searching for info on interviewing
• 39 people got here by searching for brain info
• 225 people found their ways here by searching on tbi and mental illness

Apparently, it’s something people are concerned about.

And so am I.

I’m worried. Really, really worried. Because this society seems all too eager to label people “mentally ill” when they really have logistical problems — it’s not necessarily that they aren’t thinking properly, ’cause of some inner psychological conflict going on — it’s that they can’t think properly, ’cause their brains have been rattled or somehow impacted.

And our society seems all too eager to prescribe medicines for psychological conditions — meds which may actually exacerbate the issues at hand.

For instance, as I understand it, the irritability and temper flares that come with TBI are often due to a “constant inner restlessness” that takes up residence in your head after a brain injury. That constant restlessness can be directly related to something called “tonic arousal” which (as I understand it) has to do with how awake your brain is. After TBI, certain functions slow down — processing slows down, connections that were once intact are now broken, so it takes the brain longer to sort things out. And with that slowness comes a decrease in tonic arousal… which also can lead to attention difficulties… which can feed into all sorts of problems that can make you nuts and drive you to distraction.

TBI >>> less tonic arousal >>> increased irritability >>> more meltdowns, rage, blow-ups, etc.

Now, let’s say some doctor or psychiatrist gets hold of a TBI survivor and diagnoses them with some anxiety-related condition, or some other “psychological” dysfunction. Let’s say the attending caretaker prescribes one of those “downregulators” that slows down the processes that can feed into manic/anxiety type experiences. What do you get when you downregulate someone who’s already struggling to keep up? Decreased tonic arousal. Which can mean more irritability, more temper flares, more rage, more meltdowns… possibly increased violent acting out? Maybe?

Downregulating meds >>> even less tonic arousal >>> even more increased irritability >>> more and more and more meltdowns, rage, blow-ups, etc.

I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think you need to be one, to get this connection. Maybe not being a doctor helps you see it all the clearer, without the long-term effects of that sleep-deprived-traumatized-resident fog that lots of docs get hammered by when they first start practicing.

This really worries me — had I mentioned that?

And given how many people sustain TBIs each year, not to mention how many vets are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with TBI’s and PTSD, etc., it really opens the door to a lot of crappy medicine and pain for the families and friends of the folks who have given their very brains in service to this country.

I think the only thing we can hope to do is educate people — not so much the doctors, because how many of them are listening? It’s about educating “the people” — the patients who look high and low for help (if they ever figure out that they need — and can get) help. Making sure people have access to truthful and accurate and independent information — and giving them easy and useful ways to wield that info as they defend themselves from the quacks of the world, not to mention Big Pharma.

Ultimately, it is up to each and every one of us to fend for ourselves, but a little help would be nice, now and then…

Prepping for my neuro visit tomorrow

I’ve got another neuro visit tomorrow — this one is finally a substantial one, when I’ll actually be reviewing the results of my MRI and my EEG. It’s been about a month since I got my MRI, and it’s been nearly 3 weeks since my EEG, and the suspense has been really intense at times.

In my more dramatic moments, part of me thinks, “Today is the last ‘normal’ day/week of my life.” And I get all worked up, thinking that these test results might come back with terrible news or some sign of a horrible condition/disease/tumor/whatever that will sideline me permanently — or at least turn my life into one big detour.

I worry that I won’t be fully functional anymore. That I’ll have to invest all this extra time and energy in overcoming a real issue that I’ve blissfully ignored for a long time. That I’ll be officially disabled. That I’ll be “less than human” and have to live a second-rate life as a result of what the pictures of my brain show.

I also worry that they won’t find anything at all… that I’ll turn out to be crazy and people will look at me like I’m just looking for attention… making things up… malingering… defrauding professional service providers.

Worst of all, I think, would be getting inconclusive results that will waylay my energy and keep me pre-occupied trying to track down the root cause of stuff that’s been getting in my way for a long time, but I’ve been able to brush off and minimize until the past year or so.

I’d almost rather get no results than inconclusive ones. But whatever happens, happens. And I’ll just deal with whatever comes up. I always do.

This waiting around for test results is really exhausting. Especially since I never got any medical attention for any of my multiple TBI’s, and I don’t have a lot of reliable medical records describing my symptoms and issues in medical jargon-y detail. I’ve never been able to articulate my issues to doctors with any level of accuracy, and most of the time, I’ve just given up and said, “Oh, forget it — it’s not that bad, really…” and went off to lick my wounds where I was safe and warm and able to tend to myself and my problems on my own terms.

I swear, this cognitive-challenge/communication-difficulty stuff just makes me nuts. I have a hell of a time articulating my issues out loud to doctors, who are all too often looking for medical data and/or some Latin-based vocabulary in order to properly assess my situation. I don’t know Latin, and I don’t have medical records that show evidence of my injuries. All I have is my life experience and a muddled, garbled mish-mash of out-loud observations that don’t come across right, when I’m talking to someone who doesn’t know me personally (and even if they do, can’t for the life of them imagine that I’ve actually been injured). Absent concrete data, I’m out of luck… so, I’ve been largely resigned over the years to just being out of luck.

Oh, well… what’s next? Life is waiting…

But tomorrow, I will actually be having a discussion with a doctor about real, honest-to-goodness medical test results. Imagine that. I am really looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to it so much that I’ve been studying up on MRI’s and EEG’s and learning to recognize what they show.

I found a couple of great sites for learning about them — with plenty of pictures, which I desperately need.

There’s the section on Electroencephalography and Evoked Potentials followed by their Electroencephalography Atlas over at Medline. I have been studying the page on Normal Awake EEG
so I know what I’m looking at, when the doctor shows me what’s going on with me. I’m studying the normal EEG, as well as other types, so I can tell the difference — if there is any — between what my EEG looks like and what a normal one would look like.

Normal Awake EEG : A 10-second segment showing a well-formed and well-regulated alpha rhythm at 9 Hz.

I’ve also been studying MRI’s over at Harvard’s Whole Brain Atlas, which shows what a normal MRI looks like — with the different slices — so that when I look at my own MRI, I can see if/how it differs from how it “should” look.

They have MRI slices from different scenarios —

• Normal Brain
• Cerebrovascular Disease (stroke or “brain attack”)
• Neoplastic Disease (brain tumor)
• Degenerative Disease
• Inflammatory or Infectious Disease

And you can look at the slices from different angles, which is way cool!

I’ve been studying the normal brain MRI slices, so I am better able to understand what — if anything — is wrong with my gourd.

Now, on a wireless or dialup connection, the images load a little slowly, but on broadband/cable modem, they’re speedy.

Okay, so I know I’m a bit of a nerd/geek, but this just fascinates me. I’m also studying EEG electrode placement patterns, so when I look at my own EEG, if there is any abnormal activity, I can see what area of my brain it takes place in.

Electrodes are placed on 10-20 different areas of the scalp, and they’re lettered/numbered by position. F means Frontal Lobe, T means Temporal Lobe, O means Occipital Lobe, P means Parietal Lobe, and combinations of them mean the electrodes are getting data from more than one lobe. The numbers are odd on the left side of the head and are even on the right side. Here’s an image I’ve been studying:

I think it’s fascinating. And I have a lot to learn. I think I’ll get myself a balloon and blow it up, then write all the electrode numbers on the balloon with a permanent marker, so I have a 3D version of the placement to take with me to the doctor. I’ll let the air out of the balloon, so I can take it with me easily and then blow it up at the doctor’s office so I can see what’s up, when they start talking about the different readings of my brain.

Of course, this may be moot, if my EEG comes back perfectly normal, but in case it doesn’t, I would like to understand where/how/why things are ‘off’ with me… what it means… and if/how any of my prior TBIs have specifically impacted certain parts of my brain.

This stuff just fascinates me. It’s a lot to take in, and it can actually be pretty serious, but for now I’m going to entertain myself… not to mention distract myself from all the different scenarios my broken brain is coming up with.

Sometimes the inside of my head is a scary place to be.

At last, an MRI…

Good news on the neurologist front… finally! I had an initial visit with a new neuro who will actually listen to me. I guess three’s the charm. The first two I went to, seemed to have a lot invested in just dismissing my issues or making them out to be just stress-related, but this doc actually sat and listened to me list out my issues.

Or maybe I was just better prepared this time. I know I was a lot less nervous, this time around, and that probably helped. And I’ve gotten more accustomed to talking to doctors, since that first visit nearly a year ago. But this doc was actually interested in what I had to say, which was pretty amazing. And they let me use my notes.

We actually managed to cover a lot of territory in the hour we spent together, and by the time the visit was up, I had an appointment for an MRI this weekend, a call in to the EEG lab for another appointment in a couple of weeks, and I had a third follow-up appointment scheduled for late next month.

Getting the right help makes all the difference, I say.

And having the right insurance does, too.

If I’d known, a year or two ago, what I know now, I would have done the following differently:

Two years ago, I would have checked around with friends about different kinds of insurance, and I would have changed my carrier when I had the chance. I would have NOT gone with the company I’ve been with for over 10 years, which is fine if you’re healthy, but notorious for declining to cover out-of-the-ordinary things, like neuropsychological evaluations and neurological testing. I would have gone with another plan that is not nearly as stingy with adequate coverage and doesn’t treat you like a moocher for just wanting to stay alive.

A year ago, I would have been more aggressive about finding out which doctors really are in my hospital’s network, and I would have insisted on seeing them, no matter what my PCP’s receptionist told me about them not being in “the network”. God, but this has been a huge problem with me, and I still come across it — being told that I can’t see so-and-so, because they’re “not in the network” that’s covered by my health plan, when they really are.  See, since healthcare has become all consolidated, lots of hospitals have teamed up to form networks of healthcare providers. And if I need to find a specialist but there’s not one at my hospital, I need to find one who is in the wider network. The thing is, my hospital is really territorial about keeping patients within their own “walls” and keeping us from seeing people outside this hospital, even if they don’t have the kinds of specialists I need. So, whenever I have said to my PCP, “I need a referral to —–,” they have typically responded, “We have doctors like that here!”

The thing is, they don’t. For head injury, it can be very tricky, finding the right neuro. Some neuros are in bed with insurance companies and they focus on proving that people really aren’t injured all that badly, so the insurance company won’t have to cover their treatment. And others just don’t get the whole head injury thing. It’s very puzzling that professionally trained medically “qualified” doctors — especially neurologists — can’t get their heads around the idea that brain injuries (even mild ones) can carry serious cognitive-behavioral consequences that can wreck the life of even a “recovered” brain injury survivor… and that these injuries need to be constructively addressed for the sake of human dignity and basic functionality. Clearly, there’s a realy need for some substantive education, there. Either that, or the people saying, “Oh, those brain injured people will be just fine,” have sustained brain injuries, themselves, and that’s what they tell themselves to avoid the pain and tribulations of confronting their own limitations. Who can say?

Anyway, getting back to the referral thing, when I would tell my doc, “No, I need to see a TBI specialist, and this is the person I need to see,” (having done my homework and asked around), and they pushed back and told me that I had to stay inside “their network” I didn’t realize that their network actually includes a bunch of different hospitals in the greater metro area, and some of the hospitals are associated with excellent medical schools. It took me about five false starts, before I stumbled upon the information about how wide their network really is. And in the process, I canceled — or just didn’t make — a couple of appointments with neuros who came very highly recommended, but weren’t “in the network” — the immediate one, that is — but really were in the wider associated network.

Yes, it is confusing.

And over the past year, I would have spent a lot more time not taking NO for an answer, when it came to securing proper care for my unique condition. I can’t tell you how many times administrative staffers gave me the runaround, put me off, treated me like there was something wrong with me for wanting to get help for my hidden difficulties. I was just so flabbergasted that anyone would question my right to take care of myself and keep myself from being jobless, homeless, destitute, and dying before I absolutely had to. They couldn’t see my difficulties, because I hid them so very well, and it took a monumental effort to bypass my instinctual tendency to downplay my difficulties and actually say out loud that I needed some help. I hate being treated badly, when I’m in a vulnerable spot, and that’s what happened, time and time again. And it took me about a year to get the hang of talking back to the administrative staffers who were totally snowing me on the “covered network” details and actively denying me access to the help that was most appropriate to me, before I finally acquired the skill to say, “Actually, this specialist IS in your network, so don’t deny me the help I need with a specialist who knows what they’re talking about.”

I also would have challenged those other neuros on their decisions to not order testing for me. The times when the docs said, “I don’t think you need an MRI or an EEG,” I would have said, “Is that you talking, or the insurance company? How much do they pay you to say that?” I would have really given them hell about just brushing me off, and I would have challenged them on their decisions and I would have called them on it.

Apparently, as a friend of mine who used to be in medicine told me the other day, it’s common knowledge that doctors are compensated by insurance companies for not ordering testing like MRIs and EEGs. Yes, docs get a kickback from insurers for not doing their jobs — or a least doing less of their jobs than they ‘have’ to.

This just floors me. I guess I’d have to show up close to dead and hooked up to a machine cranking out objective metrics for clinical analysis, in order to be taken seriously, but you know what, I’m just not going there. I’m a lively, vibrant, awake, engaged human being, and I actually like to live. So why would I subject myself to that sort of experience, just to make some doctor/insurance company happy? It never occurred to me that I was here to do their bidding. Funny, I thought it was the other way around. But then, I have sustained multiple brain injuries, so that probably has impacted my capacity for cynical cognitive shortcuts.

Anyway, now I know these few simple but critical things, and I can now act on that knowledge. Speaking of acting on knowledge, I think I’ll pay a visit to the hospital administration and discuss this disturbing tendency with them. I understand that they are trying to stay solvent, and they have to do what they have to do, to keep their books balanced, but actively discouraging people from seeking out proper care is just unconscionable. And someone needs to be made aware of this. I’m not asking them to send everyone out to other providers for help — just don’t actively prevent those of us with specific, unique, highly specialized conditions from getting the help we really, truly need.

That being said, I’m going to read up on MRI’s now, and prepare myself mentally for my appointment this weekend. I’m actually very excited to be going — I love machines, and the whole magnetic resonance imaging thing gives me a thrill. I don’t care if it’s loud, I don’t care if it takes all day. I’m looking forward to A) getting a close-up look at this machine, and B) actually getting some answers about what’s going on in my head — answers that are NOT based on speculation and extrapolation and deduction, but honest-to-God pictures.

I can’t wait!