Right now, both Daniel and I have gone from crying to laughing. We went to the park this morning. When we got home he did NOT want to go inside, so I had to carry him upstairs. He's a 1/3 of my weight, so it can be very awkward. When I got him to the top and was able to let him walk in on his own, he was holding his arm and screaming as if he were in agonizing pain. Karman I think body-sensation confusion is fairly common but takes various forms. My son gets feeling cold confused with feeling hot, but being unable to pinpoint and communicate pain sensations is definitely scarier (thank heavens he doesn't have that problem). Here's a visual to help kids communicate about pain. If he's still crying about his arm I'd be thinking about "nursemaids elbow" potentially... where the bone shifts and the tendon gets stuck... VERY common and harmless longterm but it hurst like HECK. Yes, my son had issues telling us about pain up utnil recently... like the last 6 months or so. He's getting better and better at it now. He's not still crying about it.. He actually totally stopped after he got off the toilet and has been using his arm just fine since.. My mom said that all 3 of us as children had the problem as well telling where pain was coming from and even which sensations were hurting, tickling and itching.. So maybe it's not totally an ASD thing?
I thought maybe a small strain. So went to give him lunch, and he bent his arm and started screaming again. He wouldn't touch his food or drink, so I thought maybe if he was able to lay down and rest his arm that it'd feel better. So I laid him in bed and nearly instantly he fell asleep.
Fast forward 90 min, he wakes up SCREAMING in pain. So I quickly went and got him and he's still cradling his arm, and my husband recommended giving him tylenol since he was able to bend his arm. Nothing worked. He wouldn't pick up anything or drink or eat, he kept screaming.. So I call the doctor's office and they ask us to come-in in 45 min. While we wait for time to leave, he finally lets me hold his cup and drink through a straw.. Not 2 min later, he pats on his pee pee and says "pee pee."
Goes in, pees, and what do you know.. He's no longer crying. He came out fine and went automatically outside and started playing..He's bending his arm, climbing, laughing, eating drinking..
So... Is it normal for a child with ASD to not recognize where the pain was coming from? It's very apparent now that Daniel's bladder was full, so I'm sure it was uncomfortable. But I am shocked he thought it was his arms.
Ali is that way. She says her head hurts when she falls on her stomach, she says her right arm hurts when her left got hit into something, or she will say something hurts when it should not be painful, something tickles when it should be painful, or that she is not in pain when it is obvious she is sick and has a scratchy throat, etc. Our dd has similar issues--I do think sometimes the pain signals get
crossed in her brain & so she may tell us her arm hurts when it is really her
stomach. This has gotten better lately. But, she will still scream because
you touch her hand but not a peep when she bangs her head up enough to
leave a mark. Also, you may ask her "does your ear hurt?" She may say yes.
Then "does your elbow hurt?" Yes. Etc. So, often I have to play detective &
to be safe, head to ped if I need to rule out an ear infection, or something
like that. We never know where Grace is hurting. It gets very frustrating, she cant verbally tell us, and she doesnt point......one day she just sat in an ant bed and let thousands of ants bite her - she didnt even whimper, but turned around and dropped a golfball on her foot and you'd of thought she was being tortured she cried sooo hard!
arm to pull him back. He wimpered a little and then started doing something
else. I noticed he was holding his elbow a little funny. He was wimpering a
lot after a while so I had my girlfriend (who used to be a nurse) look at him.
Well she thought he had a nursemaids elbow. I had to take him to urgent
care and they popped it in place. My girlfriends dd had the same thing
happen to her. it usually happens around the age to 2-3 to very flexible
children. My son had it happen to him three times after that. We could not
swing him, pull him up by his hands, let him reach out and pull stuff for a
while. He finally grew out os it by age 4. The funny thing is that while he
was verbal at 2 1/2 he could not tell me where it hurt at all.My son now knows where he has pain at but sometimes when his tonsils get swollen since its hurting his throat,ears, he gets confused what side hurts.
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