head concussion

[sandy29]

My husband is 34 years old and two weeks ago he had a car accident. Although, he did not have any visible head injury, he was acting really weird (e.g he was slurring his speech, confused, disoriented, sleepless, restless and delusional). I took him to the emergency room the next day and they did a CT scan, but did not find any brain injuries or blood in his brain. The doctor who saw him was in a extreme rush and didn't really talked to us. When my husband was discharged from the ER they gave him a paper explaining about head concussion. So we assumed he had a head concussion. He did o.k. for two days and then started being confused and disoriented again. For the most part he seems fine, but today he had another episode of confussion/disorientation and dizziness. Are this symptoms normal? Thanks for any response.

[sandy29]

Thanks to both of you for your advise. I will definitely ask his doctor to refer him to a neurologist.Thanks again.

[coreavenger]

Hi,
It definately sounds like your husband is experiencing post concussion symptoms.  Make sure you get to a neurologist.  If you go to your general practioner and he doesn't seem to concern, this may be normal because he may not be too familar with brain injuries.  The cat scan and even mri's don't usually see these problems.  A lot of doctors don't accept things without proof and this is one of the injuries that you may never see the damage.  I don't want to get you worried, because he will probably recover 100%.  But, if you don't get him the help needed, you are at bigger risks.  Also, if you don't get all the best documentation, insurance companies will down play or deny this injury.

I know this too well, as I have been living with these problems and more for close to two years.

Get on this now and be your husbands advocate....just in case.  You can't always (usually?) count on the doctor's and the system.

Read up on mild traumatic brain injury and post concussion syndrome.  Again, just in case these problems last.

[earthangel90]

The symptoms are not normal but thwt doensn't mean it's serisous either.. I have had a closed head injury before, pretty bad one, but nothing showed on the MRI, but that doesn;t mean the brain wasn;t bruised or injured or a small amount of fluid is pushing on the brain.  small amounts don;t show up on some of the tests. I would push to see a different dr. for a complete neuro exam. with time he should get better but if he has a very tiny bleed that starts leaking it could get danergous. My son had a friend in highschool that hit his head on the playground and the bleed didn't show for almost a month.not to scare you but dr. work for US> not vice versa.... good luck..