Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Should I Go To The Doctor?
Ok, this is pretty long, so I will try to make it as easy to read as possible. This is what happened: I was horseback riding, and I fell off. The horse was going pretty fast (we were jumping and he took a big spot). I landed on my back and head ( back first, then my head hit the ground. The part of my back I landed on was right above my butt, on two bones that are on either side of my spine. I had a helmet on, but it was a bit loose, so it didn't really work properly, because a helmet is supposed to be really tight against your head, so its like a second skull, but what happened in my case was that the helmet hit the ground first, and I "hit" my helmet, instead of my head hitting the ground with a really thick "skull". Ok, so these are my symptoms:
-Those two bones I described earlier are really sore, and it is also sore in between them. There is no bruising visible yet, I don't know why, because I hit that spot really bad. The pain, on a scale from 1-10 is a 2.5. When I put pressure with my fingers on the bone, it is a 3-4. However, when I don't move for a while (sit or sleep) and then I try to move, it is really stiff and can be a 5.
-(BTW, I fell off yesterday.) Yesterday, when i got up from a seated position I would get dizzy and have to hold my head and close my eyes until it passed (only a few seconds). Today, I only get a tiny bit dizzy when I stand up and I don't have to close my eyes or hold my head in my hands. However, I just had a little pounding headache but it passed already. It was a 2-3 on the scale.
-2 1/2 months ago, I had surgery to get a really big (5 lbs), benign, ovarian cyst removed that was squashing my organs and causing y kidney to swell with fluid. There were no complications with the surgery and I recovered well. However, I have my period now, and for the first time ever I have cramps for the third day in a row. In the past, i have only had cramps on the first day. (Oh yeah, they also had to remove almost all of my ovary, and they said what was left probably wouldn't survive so the other one would have to take on all the work. They said that if I started to skip my period, I would have to go on hormone pills that would stop me from going into menopause like 50 years early! Thankfully, that hasn't happened yet.) Anyway, so this is the third day with cramps, but today, it hurts really bad when I laugh or sneeze or tighten my abs in any way, which was one of the symptoms I had while recovering from the surgery. Now that type of pain is back, and I don't know if it is from the fall.
Besides those symptoms, I am also sore all over, but that is to be expected. So, do you think I have a concussion, and should I go see the doctor? I know this was probably really tiring to read, so thank you for helping. If you have any questions, ask and I will add on the answers.
3 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Hi. It sounds to me like you clearly have two separate problems, both of which MUST be evaluated by a doctor in the ER!
1) You have a concussion, probably a mild one. Being dizzy and having a headache after hitting your head really hard is a classic sign of concussion. You need to go to the emergency room right away to see someone about this. You're almost certainly fine, yet you NEVER mess around with concussions. You don't know if you're bleeding in there or whatever. You need to get an MRI of your head or CAT scan or something like that to make sure everything is fine. Don't mess with this. Don't wait, don't wonder, don't delay, just go. You've already waited too long--you need to get head injuries checked immediately. This is what emergency rooms are for! But like I said, though the responsible, smart thing to do is to get such things checked out immediately, it's also likely you're fine and just need a bit of bed rest and you need to avoid any athletic activities for a month or two, because even if this one concussion is no big deal, you are now at risk of a second concussion, and that could be considerably worse. What they've been finding now is that when someone with a concussion, even a very mild one, doesn't wait for it to heal, they risk serious brain damage that can cause permanent memory problems or depression or other cognitive problems.
2) Hard to say exactly what is going on in your abdomen. Obviously I, random person on the internet, cannot diagnose you. But I'll give you an idea of what I think it could be, and that will hopefully convince you you need to get that checked out in the ER as well. I had a surgery similar to yours when I was 16, though I had the entire ovary removed. I think your docs didn't explain things in absolutely the best way because when a doc says that there's a risk of something, they don't necessarily convey to the person the level of risk, so the person doesn't know if it's something that's going to happen really soon and they should be terrified, or if it's something that almost certainly won't happen and they should relax, or if it's something that will happen soon yet it's no big deal anyway and they should relax and not worry about it. The point is: you only need 1/2 of one ovary in order to have normal ovarian function for the rest of your life until menopause. There's a huge redundancy built into the human body, so just as you only need one kidney to do all the work of kidneys that you need, you're really fine with just one ovary. Yes, there's a remote chance that the one ovary you have will stop working, but it's a small chance, especially at your age. In other words, it's not something to worry about. However: you are still healing from your surgery 10 weeks ago. The fall sounds like it might have torn something internally, and that's not good. It could mean more pain, some complications, or the formation of some painful scar tissue. Laughing or sneezing or tightening abs all use the abdominal muscles that were cut when you had surgery. Then they were put back together with staples--you might very well still have staples inside you. Depends what your surgery was like--nowadays they're less invasive, so I dont' know what you had done. For my surgery, while I had staples on my skin, I discovered when I had an x-ray years later that there is also a long row of metal staples internally as well, that joined together the layer of muscle or fascia internally that had been cut. These kinds of things (plus internal scar tissue, called "adhesions") prevent smooth flow of body parts when they receive a major jolt, like you did the other day. Has this caused any long term problems? No way I can know, but the doc should be told so he/she can check. Personally, even though I knew intellectually that my one ovary could do the work of 2 ovaries, I became protective of my one ovary to make sure nothing happened to it.
I just gave you a really long answer and I wouldn't have bothered to devote so much time to one answer unless I thought it was really important advice. I hope you heed it. Good luck!
- Anonymous1 decade ago
I would go to the doctor if I were you. I had a really bad biking accident and had a headache too. I thought the headache was normal but I had a concussion. And w/ the back most definitely. You could be paralyzed if you hit that spot again w/o treatment right now.