1. Community
  2. Injury and accidents
  3. Accidents and Injuries

Our son's suicide linked to childhood head injury

Posted , 2 users are following.

carolinechurchill
carolinechurchill

I would like to alert anyone who has had a head injury to this link

http://www.gghjournal.com:80/volume23/2/ab01.cfm

which is a piece of recent research showing that head injury can cause damage to your pituitary gland. The injury can happen in childhood, and it doesn't have to be apparently 'serious', but years later you may have problems with depression and lack of libido. Hypopituitarism is much more common than people used to think and can affect between 25%-40% of survivors.

Our son committed suicide aged 31 at the end of August this year. He'd had a bad fall when he was seven, but this was in 1984, long before the research, so nobody warned us that he might have erectile problems. He seemed to recover so well, and he was tall and goodlooking, and he had a girlfriend for four years, so we never guessed he had problems. According to her (we spoke to her after his death) he never managed to have proper sex with her in all the years they were together, but he would not see a doctor. When she left him he was terribly upset and attempted suicide in 2003, but the GP and psychiatrist and counsellor who saw him obviously didn't know that his depression might be related to his head injury, so the opportunity to check his hormones was missed. He never found another girlfriend, with hindsight because he must have felt nobody would stay with him if he couldn't perform sexually. And now, this year, which was a year full of weddings and babies among his family and friends, he seems to have felt utterly left behind and despairing. He gassed himself with helium.

We want to make sure as many people as possible know that head injuries can have this effect. If our son had known, and if he'd known that his condition was easily treatable, I'm sure he would have seen a doctor. And he wouldn't have felt so ashamed, and as if it was his fault.

So I hope this information may help someone in his position. Or maybe if you're reading this you know someone among your family or friends who could be suffering in this way. We really really want to stop this happening to anybody else.

0 likes, 3 replies

3 Replies

  • Rhodesk808
    Rhodesk808

    Posted

    Head injuries R often overlooked for long term effects. I can agree with this post its bin 3yrs since my head injury but id had afew b4 that.

    My last head injury changed me 4 good never bin well since but oddly enuff always suffered from depression not thinkin id bashed my head as a kid thats when i slipped on a sheet of black ice on a steep bank with my legs pointing in the air it was that bad :o real fear of ice now :o

    But yes iv been suicidal took OD's not made any sense & the problem is Docs dont seem to understand these areas just how they effect people in even the very long term they think the body just heals it self but wer far more complex than that sum may never recover despite what medicals think.

    They just cant prove EVERYTHIN our technology is still not that advanced ltd of course to as far as dieing brains cells go. Im so sorry abt what happened but there are answers that will solve all these problems take care christian love

  • carolinechurchill
    carolinechurchill

    Posted

    Thank you for posting this. It does sound as if it might be a good idea for you to check out whether any of your pituitary hormones are deficient. GPs tend not to know about this complication of brain injury so if you decide to do this, do please take some research with you to back up what you're saying. There is a good article you can print out free on this link jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=208915 which shows that you have a 27.5% risk of pituitary damage after head injury. There's some evidence that repeated head injury increases the risk too.

    There's such a lot I'd like to say! Even if your GP decides to test you, you still need to keep your eyes open, eg. you need to be wary of the short synacthen test. Doctors think it diagnoses growth hormone and ACTH deficiency, but it's very unreliable (for deficiencies caused by pituitary damage) and misses two people in every five (look it up on wikipedia for evidence). Also they think that if your IGF-1 levels are normal, that means you don't have growth hormone deficiency, but in fact that's not true either, as 50% of growth-hormone-deficient patients have normal IGF-1 levels.

    It's a minefield and you have to be very, very persistent. But the good news is that I have spoken to people who were on anti-depressants after head injury, and when they were tested and the missing hormones replaced, they were able to come off anti-depressants and their quality of life was improved. I do hope you decide to try fighting for this. If you have any difficulty please contact me through our headinjuryhypo.org.uk website.

  • carolinechurchill
    carolinechurchill

    Posted

    Hi RhodesK808 I tried to reply but my posting is waiting to be approved because I put some links in it. Just in case there is a glitch I'll say the same thing without links, which was to urge you please to get your pituitary hormones checked out, and to back up your request with a copy of a free systematic review that shows that you have a 27.5% risk of pituitary damage after head injury - particularly repeated head injury. The review is by H J Schneider called Hypothalamopituitary Dysfunction after Traumatic Brain Injury and Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage, and you can easily find it if you google.

    The other thing I said was to warn you about the short synacthen test which is often used to test for growth hormone and ACTH deficiency but is unreliable for deficiencies caused by pituitary damage and misses 40% of patients. There's an article cited in Wikipedia by Dorin which you can cite as evidence if necessary. Also don't let them dismiss you on the basis that your IGF-1 levels are normal, because 50% of people with growth hormone deficiency have normal IGF-1 levels.

    I have spoken to people with hormonal deficiencies after brain injury who were on anti-depressants before being diagnosed, but once they started receiving replacement hormone treatment were able to come off anti-depressants, and have a better quality of life, so I really do hope you try this avenue. You can contact me through our website which you can find by googling headinjuryhypo. Good luck!

Back to top

Report or request deletion

Thanks for your help!

We want the community to be a useful resource for our users but it is important to remember that the community are not moderated or reviewed by doctors and so you should not rely on opinions or advice given by other users in respect of any healthcare matters. Always speak to your doctor before acting and in cases of emergency seek appropriate medical assistance immediately. Use of the community is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and steps will be taken to remove posts identified as being in breach of those terms.