Oh, the joys of speech aphasia. Once I couldn't figure out why a waiter was staring at me like I was from Mars. My little daughter tugged at my sleeve and told me I'd just ordered "rubs." I'd meant ribs.

Rub is what they do to the ribs before they barbecue them. You just got things out of order.

Aphasia can be such a comical act.

Hi Mark,

I didn't actually know that about ribs - but I'll take any explanation I can for my little "issues."

Now, can you explain why I once called the coffee pot a walnut? lol

I once yelled "basketball" instead of "motorcycle" when my husband was changing lanes in heavy traffic. No head injury to blame

I have a 15 year old daughter who on April 3rd fell at the playground and hit her head on the ground made of sand. I took her to the ER they told me she was fine no signs of a concussion. No tests ran. nothing. I waited till Monday and called her peditrician and he told me that she needed a CT Scan. It came back clean. Told me to take her home and give her plenty of rest and keep and eye on her. Then the symptoms just progressively worse so I took her back to the doctor and they admitted her into the hospital. She stayed over night and the Neuro came in and told me to take her home give her the ibuprofen(cuz tylenol does nothing for her)plenty of rest no activities for 4 weeks and come see him in 4 weeks. I did that still no improvement. they put her on an anti-depressent which really messed with her.They took her off that and put her on a blood pressure med and told me to take her for her 2nd CT scan and her EEG. That was the beginning of May (one month after incident). Now he has her on the blood pressure medicine and a musclle relaxer to sleep. the moods are still there. some days are worse than others. then she has days where all the symptoms are just like day one. He put back to normal stuff with caution. Any advice if I should get a 2nd opinion or just keep with the doctor I'm with? he is one of the top for children.

Oh boy...where to start?

First - welcome to this forum. You can find something about just about anything your daughter might experience on this journey. Use the search engine for info on specific issues. For example, I've never heard of blood pressure meds to treat PCS, but someone on here may have posted about it before so just type it in the search function. It actually makes a lot of sense to me. If not, start a new thread.

There are lots of parents of teenage girls here for some reason, and there are lots of teenage girls on here. There is something about the age/gender thing happening with head injury and post concussion syndrome. I am the mother of a 16 year old who is now 9 months post injury and still dealing with symptoms (lessening but still there).

I am definately not an expert, but rather than expending your time and money on a second neuro opinion, I would spend it looking for therapies. For example, does she need to see a chriopractor? Perhaps an endocronoligist to look at hormones? An ENT specialist to check for vestibular problems? A neuro opthamologist? Neurofeedback? Accupuncture? Neuros are, apparently, fairly notorious for the "rest and see" approach when there are some therapies that might help.

You are going to have to do the leg work and get it all figured out. Your daughter is still really early in her healing process. Some of her symptoms may not have even showed up yet. In my daughter's case, we had to wait for some of the constant symptoms to subside before she even realized she was having some vision problems.

You seem to have had the best advice for early treatment already (way better than I had) rest, rest, rest.

Others on this forum will provide you with better, more detailed guidelines. Just know that you are not alone, your daughter is not alone. This really sucks but you have come to a great place for support and guidance.

expwessions - Welcome to the forum. I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's injury. My daughter is also 15 years old and we are at the 7 month mark. Not to scare you - but we too are still dealing with symptoms - but she is so much better now than the first 3 months.

I concur with PCSLearner - REST and lots of it. Don't push her.

Should you get another opinion? Tough call. In our case, it hasn't been very helpful. They either told us one of two things - give it time - or your daughter has an underlining psychological issues (which she had none prior to her injury). Probably the most useful people that have seen her are our upper cervical chiropractor (www.nucca.com and you can search for one in your area) and the ARNP in the behavioral medicine clinic that my other daughter sees. She the one that helped me get the psychologist and others to see that it was PCS we were dealing with and not other issues. Had my daughter not freaked out at the acupuncturist - I think she too would have been good.

If you are into reading - "Brainlash" is a great book. When researching on the web - I'd recommend searching for information on mTBI or TBI. I found way more information that way than I did just looking for concussion stuff.

If you have questions or need a shoulder or a place to vent, there are lots of supportive people here. Remember, to trust your instincts as her mother. You know your daughter better than anyone else.

Expwessions,

So sorry to hear about your daughter, this is no fun. I did have success seeking a second opinion from a neurologist. The second one is wonderful and has helped me quite a bit in different areas (hormones, nutrition, headaches, referrals for other problems). I think he's a rare kind of doctor. I've also recently started seeing an upper cervical chiropracter and it is helping too. I had a terrible first neurologist experience so before I got my second opinion I spent a lot of time researching online doctor rating sites and the different areas of expertise and credentials for the doctors I was considering. I also think I got lucky to find a doc who listens, and cares more about helping me get better than his ego. It is a headache going through all the insurance referral and authorization song and dance. I've really learned from this experience that going to the right doctor is as important as the right type of doctor, it's made all the difference for me and was worth the extra effort.

That said, I'm almost at 8 months so I think some of the improvement is just because time is passing. I'm not all better, but sooo much better than I was at the beginning. It is slow and gradual. I've let a lot of things go so I can rest and heal. From what I understand, resting a lot right after the injury is crucial, and being very slow and careful to resume activities, stopping if anything exacerbates symptoms. This is not the type of injury you can "push through".

Best wishes,

Becca

[QUOTE=muddyriverrugby11;636447]I am 20 years old,

I read your post and you are right, when you talk about being depresed. I had 3 days with no symptons and suddenly the symptons reappears,like it just happened. I haven't been able to go back to work. I still have the headaches,fatigue etc. I have no life,nothing just staying in the house and going to doctors appointments. I hope you get better soon. Unless you have PCS I don't think people truly get what you are going thru. Have you thought about a support group?

Hi All,

I'm hoping someone here can help me. I've suffered my fifth or sixth concussion in 18 years this last October in an assault incident. I've healed ok, no injury on the ct although I'm having an extremely hard time almost 5 months later.

I've been drinking the whole time for pain, can't sleep, can barely work. Every time I get around too many people I get irritated fast. I'm having a lot of trigger issues, more lately it seems.

I don't want to eat behavioral enhancing drugs but think I need to see a psych, my Dr. Advised it but I don't think they can do anything.

I'm eating alot of vitamins everyday and trying to stop drinking but it's very hard. Some weeks I can barely make it and need the whole weekend to rest.

I'm trying to rest as much as possible but things just seem to be getting worse.

My primary said I have severe PTSD. I feel ok sometimes.

Is this going to last forever? Will I ever fully recover? How do I tell my family and my daughters if my personality or behavior is permanently affected? Is there anything holistically or naturally that I can do to help my brain heal and help me stop drinking?

Much appreciated.

MTN