A Florida woman didn’t know she had a brain injury for years

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.: “I was unconscious for 10 minutes, they thought I was dead,” Lisa Heath said as she shared photos of the aftermath of a golf cart accident.

Although the bruises and scars have completely healed, she says she will never feel normal.

“It’s constant and you feel it pounding in your head,” Heath added.

Heath’s doctor diagnosed her with a mild concussion, which she thought would heal on its own.

“It wasn’t until two and a half years later that I found out I had a brain injury,” Heath said.

Constant migraines, mood swings and memory loss were ruining her life; all the symptoms of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that Heath and other patients become accustomed to living with.

TBIs are more common than you think.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 2.5 million people suffer a TBI each year. In 2021, TBIs were responsible for over 69,000 deaths in the United States.

Not only are patients sometimes unaware of how common TBIs are, but according to neurologist Dr. Syed Asad, he has seen many patients like Heath who had no idea they suffered from them.

“The classification system is relatively old, and if you don’t lose consciousness or you lose consciousness for less than 30 minutes,” it’s considered mild brain injury, Asad said.

The most likely cause of TBI is a fall, and it is the leading cause of death and disability in children and adults aged 1 to 44.

From a concussion to a serious injury that leaves the patient in a coma, all are classified as TBI and can cause serious harm if left undiagnosed, even if they are considered mild.

“Basically, when you are classified as having a mild brain injury and the word ‘mild’ causes people to disregard it or tell the person that everything will be fine even though it was a serious injury and they don’t realize that it could have serious consequences. consequences, Assad explained.

The long-term consequences for Heath are no visible disabilities. Instead, she spends the rest of her life on medications to support basic brain functions and control her emotions.

“We talk about veterans and how they come back from injuries, but we’re not talking about an average person like me. I look completely normal and yet I’m in pain,” Heath said.

Heath uses her history as an author and brain health advocate to warn others about how serious mild trauma can be.

He’s educating others about his experiences so that people wear helmets or take concussion rest seriously – all to prevent more damage to one of the body’s most important organs. Heath added that it can happen to anyone, regardless of the type of accident.

“If the strongest tissue in our body can rupture, there may have been damage to the softest tissue in our body,” Asad said.

Heath chronicled her life story in a book titled “Lisa’s Life: Overcoming Adversity with Love and Laughter,” adding that she is working on a second book in which she will share in even more detail what she has learned while living with a traumatic brain injury.