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.

Thank you for all the input thus far. I do check this thread daily looking for responses. It is amazing how much confusing information there is out on the web regarding head injuries. A lot of the articles have conflicting point of view and it makes it hard to weed out what is helpful to us personally.

My daughter's narcotic is vicodine which is working fairly well. It does keep the pain at a tolerable level which has allowed her to start eating and drinking again. We were worried about her wieght loss and dehydration but they are resolving now.

She is also sleeing through the night without needing a middle of the night dose of medication and is starting to wean off the vicodine so she is not taking it as often.

Her headaches are non-stop, she is never totally pain free but at least she is functional again. Good news is she has not vomited in two days nor is she continuing to need the zofran. That is a huge relief and also helps with the return of her appetite.

The information about her neck is good and I will look into that. They did examine her neck and she said she had zero pain and she was able to move it normally but no xrays or anything. So it is worth getting a second opinion there.

Right now she is on orders to be a "coach potato" from her neuro doctor. It works because she isn't up to moving around too much but she is getting around the house okay. She is starting to complain of boredom so my parents dropped off some arts & crafts stuff for her if she feels she can focus on it. She can't read since her vision is still blurry.

So things have been better for the last two days. I hope they can continue. Thanks for sharing your stories and advice. I am learning a lot quickly.

For those still reading this thread please feel free to share any ideas or stories. It really does help to hear other peoples experiences to know what she is experiencing is normal given the injury.

I will update the post to keep people informed. Thank God for places like this where we can share and learn from each other.

Once things are settled I plan to write up a letter about what my daughter went through and mail it to every soccer club I can find to stress the importance of the Full 90 headgear and what to do if a player gets hit in the head. There is so much I would hace done differently with what I know now but at least others can learn from this.

Also on another note. My youngest son is has epilepsy. He was on doctors orders when he played soccer never to head bunt. He played soccer in a competive group of kids at the grades of 6, 7, 8 he was a 6th and 7th grader
age level. He was not a really good player. But we were lucky with coaches who welcomed him, and kids that understood pretty much. And allowed him to play when he could. Took care of him, to the extent that when he ran the field at practice someone was always behind him till he was back in the area I and the coaches could see him. But the coaches didn't even know that the kids had done this. Only I realized this. It was kind of a thing that the kids had done on their own. Even to the point one group of boys were going to be punished because they were to slow till I went up and quietly told the coach what was going on.

The coach then just made sure he forgot the punishment at the end of the practice, the boys didn't though. But my son was treated with much respect.
But during a game when he didn't head punt and got a penalty for touching
the ball, one of the other teams players said, something to the extent that he was a idiot for stepping out of the way of the ball and letting it hit him, instead of head bunting. My son in tears to a degree, said, I can't I'm under doctors orders not to head bunt. The umpire said, with arms on my son its just a game its okay. The boys on my son's team. Just ignored the play.

And some came up to him and said, You are doing fine, don't worry about it.
And gave him a hug. The best player on the team said from a distance,
Derrick you rock just ignore and play your game.

My son just beamed. So sometimes, its necessary to remind all kids that sometimes there is a reason to be careful when playing soccer, and sometimes kids aren't allowed to do all things. But all can have fun.

Donna