Nevergivup
New Here
Around April 2019 I wrote a series of posts relating to my wife. She is a stable, happy, fun loving person, who rapidly changes into a violent devil through what we together call her “head attacks”. At times she will even attack our very young daughter. Smashing up items in the house is normal. The mood change, which lasts for up to one hour, is instant and extreme. She recalls little of these events.
I first wrote this case up in the sufferers’ thread, which was a mistake as I was then attacked for continuing to support her, with a determination to find the root cause of her condition. Apparently, I should have ditched her i.e. take the children and run. I am absolutely certain that should I have done this she would not be alive today. Her children are everything to her.
The first GP (physician) we went to was a middle-aged man. As my wife freezes up when asked to discuss her history, I relayed her upbringing. She lived through and witnessed extreme violence involving armed insurgents and soldiers over the first 10 years of her life. She also suffered violent attacks on her person. On hearing the background and the symptoms, the doctor immediately diagnosed PTSD and recommended counselling. We both resisted – my wife through her inability to discuss personal details with anyone. It took several years before even I was to learn of her experiences. I resisted counselling as I don’t necessarily trust Councillors and through concern that the doctor made no effort to check her physical condition.
Time went by and we continue to go back to different doctors. My wife ended up being sent to an emergency psychiatric team that prescribed medication for depression and psychosis. The attacks continued. As I was still concerned that no physical examination had been instigated. I pointedly asked “should she not be checked with a head scan?”. The reply was “I suppose she could have a CT scan”. Nothing was done. A while later in a letter to her current GP I made known my opinion that it makes sense to eliminate a physical cause before continuing with the psychological path.
We still resisted counselling which was brought up over and again by the doctors. Still, nothing was done until I put real pressure on one doctor who offered to put her on a public health list for a brain scan where the waiting time was over 4 months. I was still being treated like a crackpot. She stated that she felt that the chance of a tumour was “less than 1%”. Having researched her condition in great depth I was putting it at 30%.
I had had enough and asked how much would it cost to go private with specialist neurologist: $1600 for the first visit and $300 for each visit thereafter. I told them to go ahead. At the first visit the neurologist listened to every detail with great care and was very non-committal. At the end I asked him, “in your opinion could this be PTSD?” He thought for a very long time and said, “it’s possible”. Clearly, he was not convinced that it was PTSD.
He put her onto an epilepsy medication and booked her in for a MRI scan. Epileptic seizures are common among sufferers of brain tumours. The seizures can be in many forms and can include violent behavior. He must have put her on the urgent list as she had her first scan 3 weeks later in the public system. They identified a lesion/tumour in her cerebellum.
She has since had 2 further MRI scans such that that now the tumour has been better characterised. The latest diagnosis is that it is likely to be a dysplastic cerebellar gangliocytoma. This condition is also called Lhermitte-Duclos disease which is very rare. The tumours are usually benign but can become malignant over time. They grow very slowly. They can impose pressure within the cerebral fluids causing headaches – another of my wife’s symptoms. She also occasionally collapses and loses consciousness for up to 1 hour. Prior to the scan GPs knew all this and still insisted that it was PTSD. There will now be ongoing scans to establish possible growth. There is also mention of a biopsy which I feel is essential. We need to know the composition of the tumour.
One of the reasons I kept pushing for a physical examination was through watching a video by a MRI specialist. He and a colleague studied 20,000 brain scans of violent prison inmates throughout the world. 30% had some form of physical brain abnormality.
I now believe that most doctors end up in their profession through being smart at school. This is mostly through having good memories and recall. They are no wiser than you or I. They are mostly tunnel versioned, as are many “smart” people.
I write this letter to urge supporters of loved ones that suffer from rapid, uncharacteristic mood changes and persistent head pain to insist on full physical examinations – including a brain scan.
I first wrote this case up in the sufferers’ thread, which was a mistake as I was then attacked for continuing to support her, with a determination to find the root cause of her condition. Apparently, I should have ditched her i.e. take the children and run. I am absolutely certain that should I have done this she would not be alive today. Her children are everything to her.
The first GP (physician) we went to was a middle-aged man. As my wife freezes up when asked to discuss her history, I relayed her upbringing. She lived through and witnessed extreme violence involving armed insurgents and soldiers over the first 10 years of her life. She also suffered violent attacks on her person. On hearing the background and the symptoms, the doctor immediately diagnosed PTSD and recommended counselling. We both resisted – my wife through her inability to discuss personal details with anyone. It took several years before even I was to learn of her experiences. I resisted counselling as I don’t necessarily trust Councillors and through concern that the doctor made no effort to check her physical condition.
Time went by and we continue to go back to different doctors. My wife ended up being sent to an emergency psychiatric team that prescribed medication for depression and psychosis. The attacks continued. As I was still concerned that no physical examination had been instigated. I pointedly asked “should she not be checked with a head scan?”. The reply was “I suppose she could have a CT scan”. Nothing was done. A while later in a letter to her current GP I made known my opinion that it makes sense to eliminate a physical cause before continuing with the psychological path.
We still resisted counselling which was brought up over and again by the doctors. Still, nothing was done until I put real pressure on one doctor who offered to put her on a public health list for a brain scan where the waiting time was over 4 months. I was still being treated like a crackpot. She stated that she felt that the chance of a tumour was “less than 1%”. Having researched her condition in great depth I was putting it at 30%.
I had had enough and asked how much would it cost to go private with specialist neurologist: $1600 for the first visit and $300 for each visit thereafter. I told them to go ahead. At the first visit the neurologist listened to every detail with great care and was very non-committal. At the end I asked him, “in your opinion could this be PTSD?” He thought for a very long time and said, “it’s possible”. Clearly, he was not convinced that it was PTSD.
He put her onto an epilepsy medication and booked her in for a MRI scan. Epileptic seizures are common among sufferers of brain tumours. The seizures can be in many forms and can include violent behavior. He must have put her on the urgent list as she had her first scan 3 weeks later in the public system. They identified a lesion/tumour in her cerebellum.
She has since had 2 further MRI scans such that that now the tumour has been better characterised. The latest diagnosis is that it is likely to be a dysplastic cerebellar gangliocytoma. This condition is also called Lhermitte-Duclos disease which is very rare. The tumours are usually benign but can become malignant over time. They grow very slowly. They can impose pressure within the cerebral fluids causing headaches – another of my wife’s symptoms. She also occasionally collapses and loses consciousness for up to 1 hour. Prior to the scan GPs knew all this and still insisted that it was PTSD. There will now be ongoing scans to establish possible growth. There is also mention of a biopsy which I feel is essential. We need to know the composition of the tumour.
One of the reasons I kept pushing for a physical examination was through watching a video by a MRI specialist. He and a colleague studied 20,000 brain scans of violent prison inmates throughout the world. 30% had some form of physical brain abnormality.
I now believe that most doctors end up in their profession through being smart at school. This is mostly through having good memories and recall. They are no wiser than you or I. They are mostly tunnel versioned, as are many “smart” people.
I write this letter to urge supporters of loved ones that suffer from rapid, uncharacteristic mood changes and persistent head pain to insist on full physical examinations – including a brain scan.
