Brain Injury Symptoms: Pain Disorders

As I repeatedly tell clients, brain injuries often go undiagnosed following car wrecks or other accidents because doctors don’t usually know you well enough to make a pre-injury and post-injury comparison of your intelligence, emotional well-being, and general personality.  As a result, it’s often up to you or your family members to notice the symptoms of a brain injury and convey those to medical providers so you get the best care possible.  But to do that, you need to know the symptoms of brain injuries.  This series is designed to help you do that.

Problems with pain are common following brain injuries.

Headache.  Perhaps the most common symptom of a brain injury is a headache.  Symptoms can range from routine post-traumatic headaches to post-traumatic migraines.  The severity of the headache and the duration of the symptoms depends on the severity of the injury and the type of head injury sustained.

Neuropathic pain.  Neuropathic pain is a condition caused by injuries to the nervous system.    This is hard to describe, but the nerves are excited so pain is prevalent.  This pain may be treated by medication.

Central pain syndrome.  Central pain syndrome is pain that follows lesions to the central nervous system.  If the brain develops lesions from the brain injury, then central pain syndrome may develop.