Dear t97tab,

I am very sorry to hear about your son's concussion. It is a terrible thing, so I will start with as much good news as I can:
Apparently, most people with this sort of syndrome recover in under a year (although sadly a significant minority do not). Thankfully for your son, two things that seem to increase the likelihood of a good outcome are being young and being male. So you have got to see that there might come a day when you can put all this behind you.

However, it is a really horrible condition. I have suffered from post concussion symptoms for over two years and I can really understand exactly the pain that he is in that makes him moan all day. I have experienced that constant pain and it would be very hard for anyone to tolerate. The main difference from other types of pain, such as broken bones for instance, is that it doesn't ease off. I have broken several bones in my body and the sharp pain that you first experience seems to ease off in 30 minutes or an hour. That isn't so with the post-concussion pain; it doesn't ease off: it's there all the time. I can tell you though that the pain does become less if you monitor it on a long time-scale, such as weeks, months or, in some cases, years.

So advice/suggestions on treatment/outcomes:

1. Do not push him to do anything. I think that in the first few weeks or months you should do as little as possible. Anything seems to aggravate the condition and by doing anything I mean having conversations, doing any work, PLAYING SOCCER ! Whatever you do don't let him get in any situtation where he could have a secondary injury. That could be really serious. Literally anything that he does involves his brain working, so that could tire his brain out and that isn't a good thing for its recovery.

2. Don't worry about him losing abilities by not practicing things. The problem isn't that his brain doesn't know how to work. The problem is that it is completely exhausted and needs every scrap of energy to try to keep going on life support and eventually heal. Don't let him waste energy on other less important things, such as anything else that is going on in his life. The most important thing for him is to heal his brain.

3. It might be an idea to keep some sort of symptoms diary. I did this and it was incredibly boring because every day was exactly the same: headache, nausea, exhausted, dizzy etc. However, if you take note over the long term you might see improvements and that will give you the confidence that you are going in the right direction. At first I noticed improvements every day, then every month, then every six months. The better I got the slower were the improvements but I keep going in the right direction, so that might happen for you also.

4. Regarding treatments: time and rest are the two best healers so don't let anything get in the way of those. Other things that helped me were :
(a) diet - eat lots of protein in the first year, also omega3 fatty acids (oily fish, also a supplement would be good), magnesium. I also take a couple of supplements for the brain CoQ10. You can get supplements for brain nutrition.
(b) manipulation of the neck and back - I had the reverse problem of your son in a way, in that the doctors could only see the concussion and therefore ignored the fact that I had injuries to my neck and upper spine. Some of the headaches may be due to problems in the spine rather than the head. I am having some manipulative physiotherapy and I also tried cranio-sacral massage, which turned out to be light massage and manipulation, although is sounded nothing like that in the brochure.
(c) Amitriptyline - 10 mg nightly has a good effect on my headaches. It needs to be prescribed, but I found that it worked whereas the NSAIDs did not have any effect. The dose needs to be worked out. 10 mg is a low dose but that can be raised as necessary, if it doesn't cause unwanted sleepiness, which it did in my case. It is a tricyclic drug which can be described as an antidepressant. However, it is only an antidepressant at high dosage (above 75 mg), not the lower doses that you would take it at for headache.

My guess is that he will be just fine in the end, although it is a horrible thing to go through. I had a concussion when I was 8 and within a few months, I had completely recovered. My guess is that his youth is going to get him through and he will get back to normal just from the healing power of being a 13 year old.

Best of luck,
CS