DS2 (5) not communicating pain - am really upset tonight.

[LargeLatte]

Evening all. You have been so supportive in the past, I have come for more help (I have been trying to help others so I am not a total leech).

Ds2 doesn't communicate pain. If I think about it he is very unlikely to ever communicate any physical need (toileting OK) - too hot, too cold, hungry, thirsty.

He has dyspraxia and a colourful sensory profile.

I am really upset tonight because I notice his face was red, then that it was red because he was scratching it and pulling at his ear etc- so he has an ear infection which he gets a lot. I asked if it hurt and he started to cry and when I asked him how long he said it had hurt for a few days. No wonder he has been having a bad week at school!

He is fine now with pain relief and we will see dr in morning.

But how do I help him in future? He speaks well, no speech delay.

Is it that he doesn't understand the feeling? Or he forgets to tell me. I hate to think of his poor little body under the strain of illness or injury and I don't know.

Could be that he just doesn't realise he needs to tell you, he thinks you'll know what he's feeling.

I often have to remind my DS that I don't know what he's thinking / feeling unless he tells me.

Scrambly has a point, I have known for a while that Dd3 thinks I can feel her pain.

She is always surprised when I remind her that I can't.

She is hypersensitive to pain and something always hurts but I have had a few scary moments with her when she hasnt told me about something more serious.

No decent advice sorry but try not to feel bad

So he feels it, thinks I already know, and then wonders why I don't do anything about it :/

Oh dear, we werent much help were we

Sorry latte, I am trying to think of a way to help.

Do you do social stories with him??

Maybe a social story read very frequently would help him to understand that he needs to tell you if he has a pain.

I didn't mean to sound critical. I am just so fed up of the ear infections so I can't imagine how he feels about it, and feeling crap that I didn't notice earlier.

My Dd1 was the same, she used to get ear infections all the time and never told me. I once took her to the GP about her asthma only to be berated because I hadnt taken her sooner as apparently she had a raging ear infection, she had not complained once.

You have to be kind to yourself, you cant possibly know if he doesnt tell you either verbally or non verbally like he did tonight. Anyway you havent ignored it you are sorting it so dont beat yourself up.

Hopefully he will grow out of them, Dd1 did when her tubes got a bit bigger.

Thanks. I feel like I fail him in some way every day. He's not in any pain now and the GP will sort it tomorrow - no harm done I guess.

I am sure you are a great mum, if you werent you wouldnt be on here and you wouldnt be bothered.

Hope he sleeps ok and you get a good nights sleep

Hi,
I really sympathise with this. My son is nearly 4 has ASD and he has a very high pain threshold. By the time he does react to something, it's bad. He had an ear infection once, I had no idea until he suddenly started non stop screaming. The Dr said to me why didn't you bring him before it's quite nasty. I felt AWFUL, like the worst mum in the world. But how was I supposed to know when there were no signs at all?

I'm on the Earlybird Autism course at the moment and we were talking about it. They said that often children either assume you already know like already mentioned, or they find it hard to work out where the pain is or what pain is (they said that this is mainly in children with sensory issues). Using a picture of bodyparts can sometimes help if you have an idea something might be wrong, get them to try and point to where on them feels different.

Don't give yourself a hard time about it, how were you possibly supposed to know. Much as we would like to be we aren't psychic. All we can do is try to encourage our children to let us know when something is different and I think that (if it ever does work) will take time and they are very young still.