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Could Severe Head Trauma Lead To Brain Damage Affecting Memory Loss?

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Posted on Tue, 24 Dec 2013
Question: in 1973 had a bad accident resulting in head trauma, spine damage, broken and fused L3 &L4 vertebrae. Shortly thereafter I started experiencing non-epileptic seizures, sometimes 2 a day, to 2 or 4 a month that also lead to 4 motor vehicle accidents where I had a seizure behind the wheel and each event was accompanied with more severe head trauma. All the different hospitals that I had visited had no clue or idea of what caused them or how to treat my head injuries. My last seizure & accident happened in 1984.At that time I decided to stop taking the only drug they let me have, Dilantin [ against doctors orders ] and shortly thereafter, I thought I could feel them coming on and was somehow able to fight thru them without losing consciousness. This background info I thought would be helpful for my main basic inquiry into memory loss, I basically don't have any memory prior to 1984. I also can't remember much of anything that has happened since then except bits & pieces. Each new job I've had I can remember what the order of business is but my old jobs are again only fragments in my memory. Could this have to do with the sever head trauma that may have caused some kind of " brain damage " I have received. As a little side note, all the doctors I've told this story to just shrugged it off saying I don't know what I'm talking about and your problem probably stems from your past drug use. I don't think so. [that's another long story] I'd just like to hear some feedback from a professional to see how close the info is to what I have surmised to be the difficulty, after all these years and after the research I have done trying to figure out my mental & physical inabilities.
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Answered by Dr. Sudhir Kumar (3 hours later)
Brief Answer: My reply is below. Detailed Answer: Hi, Thank you for posting your query, and providing a detailed account of your problems. I agree with your diagnosis of non-epileptic seizures, however, I feel that some of your episodes were epileptic seizures too. This is because those seizures led to more accidents (as they occurred when you were driving). Non-epileptic seizures usually do not lead to accidents. If you are not having any episodes of seizures now, then, you need not re-start dilantin or any other anti-epileptic medication. I also agree with you that your memory loss is related to the multiple head injuries, which could have caused damage to some parts of brain, more typically the temporal lobes. (If you have a copy of MRI brain report, it would be useful in confirming this). I hope my reply has helped. I would be pleased to answer, if you have any follow up queries or if you require any further information. Best wishes, Dr Sudhir Kumar MD (Internal Medicine), DM (Neurology) XXXXXXX Consultant Neurologist Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, For DIRECT QUERY to me: http://bit.ly/Dr-Sudhir-kumar My blog: http://bestneurodoctor.blogspot.com/
Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
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Dr. Sudhir Kumar

Neurologist

Practicing since :1994

Answered : 6231 Questions

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Could Severe Head Trauma Lead To Brain Damage Affecting Memory Loss?

Brief Answer: My reply is below. Detailed Answer: Hi, Thank you for posting your query, and providing a detailed account of your problems. I agree with your diagnosis of non-epileptic seizures, however, I feel that some of your episodes were epileptic seizures too. This is because those seizures led to more accidents (as they occurred when you were driving). Non-epileptic seizures usually do not lead to accidents. If you are not having any episodes of seizures now, then, you need not re-start dilantin or any other anti-epileptic medication. I also agree with you that your memory loss is related to the multiple head injuries, which could have caused damage to some parts of brain, more typically the temporal lobes. (If you have a copy of MRI brain report, it would be useful in confirming this). I hope my reply has helped. I would be pleased to answer, if you have any follow up queries or if you require any further information. Best wishes, Dr Sudhir Kumar MD (Internal Medicine), DM (Neurology) XXXXXXX Consultant Neurologist Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, For DIRECT QUERY to me: http://bit.ly/Dr-Sudhir-kumar My blog: http://bestneurodoctor.blogspot.com/