My 13 year old daughter was playing in a soccer tournament recently and things are miserable.

Day one the ball went out of bounds, my daughter bent over slightly ready to pick the ball up when another player from the other team tried to save the ball and kicked it really hard into my daughter's temple. My daughter was dazed and out of it but shook it off and kept playing. That night she had a black eye and a mild headache. She awoke the next morning feeling find so she returned to the field.

Day two, just a couple minutes into the game my daughter was running along another player when that players intentionally clocked my daughter in the head with her elbow. My daughter went down crying and bleeding from the mouth. This hit was on the cheek just under the eye. That night again she had a headache but took advil and seemed okay.

Day three she played to more games without injury and seemed fine. But that night she was crying in pain from a headache. We were out of state so she took advil and seemed better.

THe next day she seemed okay other than a mild persistent headache which was tolerable with advil. So we flew home.

She saw her doctor who said she had a concussion and just to take advil and tylenol until she felt better. She had a headache, sensitivity to light, slight balance issues due to dizziness, mild nausea.

Ten days after the first hit she had severe head pain the led to vomiting so we took her to the ER. THey did a CAT scan and she has a small subural hematoma, but was sent home with just advil and tylenol to manage pain.

Two days later she is again in SEVERE pain, vomting and we went back to the ER where she was admitted to ICU.

She is just out of ICU (Today) and on vicodine and tylenol to manage pain and zofran to manage the vomiting.

While is the hospital a second CAT scan showed the bleed in the brain was smaller than it had been a few days earlier and is healing. We were told she has Post Concussion Syndrome so I've been trying to read up on it but get confused. She is 15 days post injury and has a continuous headache since the injury. Last week her pain was tolerable with over the counter stuff and this week it was not at all manageable so that now she is on narcotics.

She is supposed to see a speed therapist in the next week or two for a cogntive assessment and follow up with neuro surgery in two weeks. IN the meantime they said medicate for pain.

She can barely function, gets nausea whenever she moves around so she is basically on complete bed rest.

Is it normal to get WORSE the second week than the first?
What about taking all these narcotics?
ANy ideas on when she might feel ANY relief?
Any ideas? SUggestions?
I have never dealt with a head injury before so I feel totally lost.

ANy advice, suggestions or shared experiences would be appreciated. IT breaks my heart to see her like this and I want to do anything I can to help her.

I don't know how much help I can provide, as my head injury wasn't as violent as your daughter's appears to have been, but I'll try to at least give you something here...

Head injuries are the most bizarre maladies that the body could possibly produce, and that's by a wide margin. The way people recover from them is equally bizarre and twice as mysterious... some people recover from severe head injuries within a few days, while others take several years to recover from mild trauma episodes. There's a lot of theories on why this happens, but unfortunately the brain is just one of those things that medical science does not know all that much about.

You can call that good news and bad news, because really you and your doctors (who seem to be very good, as they're taking a far more proactive approach than many doctors would) don't know what could happen with something like this. Your daughter could wake up tomorrow, or maybe a week from now, and be right back to feeling 100%, but then again it might take months or longer for her to get back to where she used to be. The key is to always be hoping for a quick recovery while remaining prepared for a long one.

It's a very good sign that she's showing tangible signs of healing, so find comfort in that if you can. As far as her seeming to get worse, it's not uncommon for people to experience more difficult effects from head injuries in the weeks following the trauma than they experience within days of the initial impact. I haven't done the medication thing, so I unfortunately can't give you any information there.

Keep the faith, it sounds like your daughter's in good hands.

Hi I'm not sure exactly what you mean by narcotics for pain medication.
But its definately not a thing that is unusual to need something stronger than the over the counter medications for pain. And another thing is that
the more you can take it easy and try to take things at a slower rate the
better it is.

I know that with my post concussion syndrom I also had a neck problem and
that I also did a few weeks of physical therapy and that was one of the things that helped me the most.

I would recommend having her rest and sleep as much as possible. Taking it easy as much as she can. It something that will help a lot.

Donna

From what I have read on PCS, it is fairly common to have delayed symptoms. I experienced the same thing. I felt really bad at first, then felt better, then started feeling really bad for a while. From what you have described, it sounds like a textbook case of PCS. The second hit was most likely what caused it. The brain did not have time to heal from the first hit and it was in a weakened state when hit the second time. Like the others said, the recovery times vary widely. Most people are fine within a few weeks to a month. Some people take 3-6 months and others like myself take even longer than that. She needs rest, and recovery may be a slow process. There is not alot you can do besides resting. When she starts feeling better, you should let her gradually go back in to her normal activities. Too much activity could actually make it worse. Don't worry yourself too much over this. She will get better. You just need to give it some time.

Possibly her C1/C2 {or atlas/axis} cervical vertebra might have gotten knocked out of alignment also. Most MDs don't really look into that scenario.

some info on it-
Chiropractic care info- a good/expert one can help with many symptoms:
http://www.upcspine.com/self.htm
http://www.uppercervical.org/subpag...b/about_faq.php
http://www.spineuniverse.com/index.html
http://www.coloradochiropractic.org/.../glossary.html

First of all, I am sorry for all the suffering that you and your daughter are having. My son had PCS from a wrestling injury back in February and was just as sick with symptoms as your daughter but had no head bleed. His CT and MRI were normal. He was worse before better and then after about a month gradually improved. He is now only having difficuty doing long periods of school work. He gets overwhelmed if he does too much but we are very hopeful he will have full recovery in about a year time. REST and support her. It is good that it is summer so she is not missing too much school, while she is feeling the worst. Every case is different in recovery but headache, dizziness, mental fatigue, irritability, insomnia are pretty classic PCS symptoms. The symptoms will improve, be patient and stay in touch.