The Contest Challenge

Sorry to have unloaded all that on you the other day. Awkward... I didn't even remember that I'd done it until I saw your response.

Anyway, you could make an annual trip to the US to visit my doc. Just options... Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood are all close and cool to visit (though not great to live in, IMO), so it could be a nice holiday each year.

As for your sister's PTSD, she can try EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It's been around for decades and is accepted by both insurance and government as useful treatment. It uses the idea that when you sleep, you move your eyes in REM sleep and that's when you are processing your day. In EMDR, you process your experiences through eye movements while awake. I haven't done it yet because it took me a year and a half through the VA to get a provider I could work with to do EMDR on me. And now I'm waiting until the fall because I don't believe it will work through telehealth and I'm traveling a lot this summer. (I leave LA every summer and Christmas because I think it's a great place to visit, but I don't like to live here. )

There's another thing here called Accelerated Resolution Therapy. But it's pretty new so it's not yet accepted by insurance or the government. It's based on EMDR and is sometimes nicknamed EMDR 2.0. I've done it and it was AMAZING!!! I did 5 days of it for 1 1/2 - 2 hours each day 8 years after I came back from Iraq. In those 5 days, I'd say the 1 (of 3) trauma I worked on was 80-90% resolved! It was like a miracle!!! AND I didn't have to talk about the trauma!!! I don't know how much you talk about it in EMDR since I won't be doing it until this fall, but I know with Accelerated Resolution Therapy the closest I got was things like asking me to imaging a word associated with the trauma and then asking what the word was. She didn't ask me why I chose that word or what that word means within the context of the trauma. It was AMAZING!!! I couldn't believe it worked!!! You probably don't have Accelerated Resolution Therapy there, but you probably have EMDR, in case either of you is interested in any trauma treatment. I'm doing EMDR next because the other place only lets you go through once but the VA provides EMDR treatment for vets, so since it's based on the same principles, I'll be doing EMDR.

Brain surgery is scary business! I'm glad you've had some recovery and that you can look on the lighter side of memory issues. I'm also glad there has been legitimate improvement with your short-term memory. Though I'm sorry that it's now in decline. That is worrisome! My TBI doc did genomic testing. (Similar to genetic testing, but apparently you can't do anything about your genetics but you can about your genomics.) He said I have a 41 times increased chance of dementia compared to a normal person...and that doesn't include the TBI damage. The woman next to me in the explosion started her dementia in her mid- late 50's. I'm 52. SCARY! Sure, maybe her genomics are worse than mine, but still, it's not encouraging. That's part of why I am going to start my PhD right after I graduate with my masters'. It's been a goal since my 20's. I know it will be hard to work and work towards my social work license and be working on my PhD, but if I have to choose, I choose the PhD above the others. And you can often find a job you can coast through easier than coasting through school, IMO. Not that I plan to coast through work, but just saying that if I do have to coast through something... lol

Migrainous Epilepsy? I've never heard of that, but it definitely sounds horrible! I'm sorry about that. I'm also sorry about your fibromyalgia. I have that as well. It's pretty common in women with PTSD to also develop fibromyalgia. Yay. When I first started getting it, I thought I was coming down with the flu because I hurt all over, but then when I didn't get any other symptoms, I thought I dodged the bullet and just didn't manage to get sick. About the 3rd time I thought I was coming down with something, but then didn't have anything more than aches and pains I realized it was fibromyalgia. It's something the military will put you out for, so I didn't tell them until later when they were already putting me out for my PTSD.

I'm sorry you have to permanently be on antidepressants. That sucks, but at least insurance pays for them...I assume... My TBI doc has me on things to supplement my brain chemistry because while antidepressants help, they don't give me everything I need so I have to pay for all that stuff myself because insurance won't, nor will the VA. On the good side, I have a doc who found answers for me when the VA couldn't. I'm not all about the idea of universal healthcare because several private doctors I've known say they would just retire rather than have to work under that sort of system that controls what they can and can't do.

The VA and the military were both a sort of universal healthcare. Sure, it was better than nothing and I support having something for everyone. But I also don't want to give up my better care just to make things even for everyone. I don't want to go back to being suicidal, having hallucinations and paranoid delusions, etc. just because not everyone joined the military and thus can't afford the care I can with VA my disability. Yeah, it's not a very social worker attitude, I know. lol But I'm about bringing everyone up to a better level, not about dragging others down to make the level even, which seems to be a thing a lot of my classmates believe in. Rather than focusing on how to help others get better medical care, they talk a lot about how bad it is that some can afford better care.

I hope that I can get back on everything before classes start August 22. We will see... The good thing is that the Pregnenolone, my magic pill, starts working in just a couple of days, at most. It's not like an antidepressant that can take weeks before you see a difference. You can literally feel a difference within 1-3 days of taking it. Of course, missing just 1 dose, unlike my antidepressants, can also make a bigger difference and by day 3, I'm back to the beginning. So, there are pluses and minuses to their being fast acting.

Thanks for sharing a part of your story! I'm glad you've found things that work for you and I do hope you are able to find someone who can help you continue to improve. Good luck and take care of yourself! You got this!