Brains should be spicy, not scrambled. They are also finicky and you'd tell anyone else to get checked out.

It's not like the worst that can happen is you'll scar slightly worse or feel itchy. Brains get checked out.

insent re: Le week-end, smonster!

SQUEEE!

Okay, but the only symptom I'm having is pain at the site of whacking. (I am having the HARDEST time trying to get it through Tim's head that this isn't a headache, that it's like a bruise. I keep saying that headaches hurt from the inside out, and bruises hurt from the outside in [which is not strictly true, but it's the best comparison I could make, but maybe that doesn't make sense and that's a sign I should seek medical help], and this is the latter kind of pain. It feels like any other impact injury would -- your outside gets hit and then it hurts. Not like a headache, which is that something inside starts hurting. Fuck, does that make sense? Because I can't word it properly to make Tim understand it at all.)

Anyway, long parenthetical aside, literally the only symptom I have is external pain at the site of whacking. Every other symptom on the list of concussion/brain injury symptoms is not present. I feel like Urgent Care would just laugh at me and send me home with tylenol. I don't think an ER would do a CT scan of someone with only one symptom.

Damn it, I don't even know.

Makes sense to me.

I personally would not bother, but I'm way too lackadaisical about shit, so.

I have had things start hurting several days I whacked them. Why don't you try some ice and see if it helps?

I think maybe I'll just keep an eye on it and call the doctor tomorrow. (Unless, of course, anything changes; obviously then I would go to the ER.)

(I am having the HARDEST time trying to get it through Tim's head that this isn't a headache, that it's like a bruise. I keep saying that headaches hurt from the inside out, and bruises hurt from the outside in [which is not strictly true, but it's the best comparison I could make, but maybe that doesn't make sense and that's a sign I should seek medical help], and this is the latter kind of pain. It feels like any other impact injury would -- your outside gets hit and then it hurts. Not like a headache, which is that something inside starts hurting. Fuck, does that make sense? Because I can't word it properly to make Tim understand it at all.)

That does. Sinus headaches have had me rubbing at the pain hard enough to bruise on several occasions. Then it hurt both from the headache and from the bruise.

What concerns me is that you can't find a bruise or cut or something to explain the external pain. Just a straight headache wouldn't concern me as much. It's unexplained pain following (but not immediately after) an impact. Unexplained is what concerns me.

And, yes, they may tell you to go home and take a Tylenol. But if they do, they might be able to also explain why it hurts now when it didn't for a few days.

edit: I slept four days through a heatwave and what I then realized was a concussion from a car accident. Nine times out of ten*, whatever got hit will heal. But I should have been taken to a doctor immediately and I am damn lucky that I didn't have anything permanently wrong. * Number guessed at with no cites.

This is a completely bizarre hypothesis, but you know how some bruises don't really bloom until a day or two later? Maybe this is something like that.

I like Ginger's suggestion of ice, and whatever anti-inflammatory you can take. Then in the morning, if it still hurts, or if it wakes you tonight, consider going.

Why don't you try some ice and see if it helps?

I did, but there doesn't seem to be any change.

What concerns me is that you can't find a bruise or cut or something to explain the external pain.

When I looked in the mirror a little bit ago (to do the pupil check, which is entertaining as HELL), there is a definite mark now, that is aggressively hot pink.

This is a completely bizarre hypothesis, but you know how some bruises don't really bloom until a day or two later? Maybe this is something like that.

Honestly, that's all I was thinking it was, until I googled and got all the Natasha Richardson and TBI results.