Dd is 18. 3-4 years ago she had a moderate concussion followed 2 weeks later by a whiplash injury, which exacerbated the concussion. No x-ray, it took months for her to feel normal again.
Since then she always has pain at the back of her head/neck where the original injury was. Sometimes it’s bearable, other times less so. She also has spasms radiating from this spot.
Since this she has had problems with her vision, she struggles to focus and her sight is often blurry. In the last three years she has had several pairs of glasses with varying prescriptions, none of which have helped.
She has also had some major mental health issues since then - we have a family history of autism, and dd has always had anxiety, but since the concussion she also has OCD, depression and an eating disorder. This might not be relevant though.
She’s seen an osteopath for months, had two lots of physio, nothing eases it.
She’s done the usual heat/ice/painkillers, nothing helps.
Her latest eye test was two weeks ago, and for some reason the optician wrote to her gp (maybe because she’s had 6-7 appointments in the last 3 years) who rang dd to say that she suspects there’s a link between the concussion and the vision and pain. She referred dd for an X-ray and said that if that came back clear she’d carry on investigating, possibly MRI to check the blood flow at the back of DD’s head.
Dd had the X-ray last week and has just had a follow up appointment today. The gp checked her strength in both sides (I assume checking for one-sides weakness), which was fine, noted that her left eye reflex was lagging, then mainly focused on DD’s eating disorder and said that that was causing the neck pain (neck pain and vision predates the ED by 2-3 years), has ordered bloods to check her levels and suggested yoga as it is muscular. DD’s neck barely came into it.
Dd spoke to another gp later as she was upset with the lack of outcome. This dr has referred her for more physio, commented that the GP today had covered a lot and that dd is a difficult patient.
The dr who brought up the MRI is currently on holiday, but I will follow this up with her when she’s back.
I’m pissed off because dd has been in constant pain for years now, and has been repeatedly fobbed off.
I have no idea if the dr was calling her a difficult patient in a descriptive way or a critical way.
If this was your child what else would you be doing?
Thank you.