Concussion?

[Dace]

Saturday night my 17 yr old was at a concert....in the mosh pit and got hit in the cheek bone near her ear. Pretty hard.

She still has a headache. Should I take her in to be looked at? She does not have any bruising although on Sunday it did look just a little puffy.

I am concerned that she still has a bad headache (as of Tues AM ) but our insurance is not effective until Dec 1 and I know that they will do a cat scan.

Ideas, thoughts? Should I just suck it up and deal with the huge expense later?

 

[TanksHill]

I know there are people who know more about this than me...

But when my son knocked his head the first thing they asked me is if he was vomiting? Something about serious vomiting and concussions going together.

Mosh pits, jeesh, those were the days. Tell her next time to wait until you have medical.

Hugs,
g

 

[Dace]

Oh I know! I said no more moshing! 'but mom, that is the fun part!'

No vomiting. So, that is good.

She has had two concussions, many years ago, vomiting was out cue to take her in, there was no doubt. But this is still a pretty bad headache. I am actually letting her stay home today. She took tylenol yesterday and it did not seem to help.

 

[TanksHill]

Sounds like she got knocked pretty good. Is it a headache or more of a whiplash kinda pain. Maybe her neck is pinching? I would try the 3 ibuprofen 2 Tylenol mix. When we weaned my dh off of the hard meds after his mouth surgery that's what the doctor prescribed.


Good luck and I hope she feels better.

g

 

[Dace]

3 ibuprofen and 2 tylenol? I did not know you could do that.

Thanks

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Do her pupils match? Is she saying odd things like "Hand me the iron." when she really means the remote? No vomitting is good.

~hating that I've gotten too old for the mosh pit~

 

[Dace]

She said that when it first happened she was a little bit disoriented and said a couple of unusual things. She woke up at 7 the next morning and went to work till 1....came home napped for an hour and was fine other than a headache.

Yesterday she went to school but was distracted by her headache. Came home and was herself, wasted some time on the computers and went to bed early. This morning asked if she could stay home because her head hurt and she would not be able to concentrate, like yesterday.

She seems pretty normal aside form her headache. Her eyes look fine.

 

[cjparker]

I know how hard a decision it is to go to the doctor when there's no insurance, but if she were my child, I would take her. They shouldn't have to do a CAT scan in order to rule out concussion, but there could be something else going on, such as a fracture on her cheekbone, or inner ear damage. The way I look at it is if she doesn't have anything wrong, it shouldn't be such a huge bill, especially if you let them know you are uninsured so they don't throw a bunch of not-really-necessary tests at her. If there is something wrong that needs to be addressed, the expense will secondary to getting her back to health.

Got my fingers crossed for you both that nothing's wrong.

Oh, and taking naproxin (Aleve) and acetomenaphin together is okay, per my doctor. The two drugs come at pain from different angles, so to speak. I take my "cocktail" occasionally for joint/muscle pain.

 

[Beekissed]

Yep....a bad headache that is not relieved by Tylenol that many days after the incident is probably worth checking out. Tell them about your insurance and they will try to keep the costs down.

Possibilities range from a fracture; a bruised bone; trauma to the fascia~this can cause tightening of the aponeurosis, that broad, flat band of fascia that stretches over the skull and result in an ongoing headache and may require steroids to relieve; a subdural hematoma~a blood clot that lies under the bone layer of the skull and can press against brain tissue....the list goes on.

And it could be exactly nothing and will go away in a few days!

 

[abifae]

so i shouldn't mention how often my pupils dilate and pulse randomly of each other?

the pulsing, for the record, is awesome looking.