Hit by a car as a kid, never properly checked out — could symptoms decades later still be from it?
This is kind of embarrassing to even post because it happened so long ago, but I've been sitting with this for years and I need to talk to people who might get it.
When I was around nine years old I was struck by a vehicle while I was on my bike near my house. I went over the hood and landed hard — neighbors who saw it said I slid a pretty significant distance across the pavement. I remember waking up on the ground and there were people around me. I had road rash, a broken collarbone, and apparently lost consciousness briefly, though nobody told me that until I was an adult and someone mentioned it casually like it was nothing.
Here's the thing: I was treated at the ER, kept overnight, and then just... sent home. My family wasn't really the "ask a lot of questions" type. No follow-up neurology, no imaging that I know of, no one sat me down and explained what to watch for. My parents basically said I was lucky and to move on.
Fast forward to now — I'm in my late thirties — and I've been dealing with chronic headaches, memory issues, mood stuff, sensitivity to light and noise, and some cognitive things that have started affecting my work. My doctor recently floated the idea of a possible old TBI as a contributing factor after ruling out some other things.
I guess what I'm wondering is: is it actually possible that a brain injury from childhood could have been missed and be showing up in a bigger way now? Has anyone else dealt with something like this — old accident, no real follow-up, problems surfacing way later? And is there even anything you can do at this point, legally or medically?
I feel kind of gaslit by my own past, honestly.