Accident happened at an evening swim practice, and we went to a Children's Urgent Care center the next morning. Diagnosed without any brain scans according to level of symptoms and no loss of consciousness. Given phone number of Children's Concussion Nurse Hotline, which we have utilized multiple times for advice.

Initial symptoms included massive headaches, slight dizziness, extreme sensitivity to light and sound, and fatigue.

Followed the instructions given by Urgent Care to the letter including isolation in dark bedroom, no electronics at all, no schoolwork, no physical activity, no nothing but eating frequent meals and snacks that focused on whole grains, drinking lots of water daily, and sleeping as much as he could stand. We did take him to our chiropractor to get adjustments during this time period.

Followed the proctocol by stages, and then followed up with Primary Care Doctor to get officially "released" to go back to swim practice. Slowly eased into practices, missed a number of swim meets, and slowly added in academic work and classes.

8 weeks into recovery, after successfully attending one loud, noisy swim meet, attended a second meet and was overwhelmed by the noise, conversations, physical exertion, and general chaos of a large swim meet. Sent back to Stage 1 of Recovery. Took 6 more weeks off of swim practice, pulled back from academics. Continue to receive specific phone counseling from Children's Concussion Team, and following nurse's instructions for recovery. We were counseled it hadn't been long enough to consider other doctor intervention, just let the body heal itself.

Tried again later to ease into school and swimming, still having struggles. Stop and regroup. By this time, sadness sets in at being cut off from the world, and frustration at doing everything we were told to do, and still not seeing results. (Must say that no one counseled us of the long term recovery process. We kept thinking something was "wrong" because he was so far past the "normal" range for recovery.)

February started with him going back to swim practice, and he managed to work out enough to get back in shape in time for metro championships. (Won 1st place, even as a 15 year old racing against 15-18 year olds.) That was a great emotional victory for him, and he is encouraged to be getting more physical exertion back in his life.

We were given options of pursuing neurologist or neuropsychologist, and we chose neuropsych testing. Took several months to get an appt, then testing, then 3 weeks before followup appt. We got a Big fat packet of info that cost us thousands of dollars and didn't really tell us anything. IQ is above average, testing doesn't document the troubles he is having with focus/concentration and headaches that vary from a 3 to a 10 on 10 point scale.

Neuropsych doc recommended we visit a neurologist and get on preventive headache medicine, and see what brain function could be if the headaches weren't there. We have not made that appt yet, and struggle with what is the best next step in this journey.

And that's what brings me to the internet now, researching alternative treatment options and ways to encourage the body to heal without medicating the symptoms (and having to deal with side effects.)

We are open to more specialized chiropractic care, massage therapy, neurofeedback, more intentional nutrition/supplements, etc. And we are also open to meeting with a neurologist, since we don't want to dismiss medical intervention without understanding how they might help us. I would love to find a neurologist that is open to holistic/alternative treatments in addition to medicine.

We think we see small increments of improvement in his overall health and well being, but we also realize now that this is a much longer journey than we had been told to expect.

Thanks for caring about my son's health!