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Yesterday two year-old
McKenna fell off a rocking chair, and then a little while later
slammed into the headboard of her bed.
Dr. David Goo, of the emergency room at Children’s Healthcare
of Atlanta says, “After each of those injuries she was not
hurting.”
But McKenna woke up this morning screaming in pain, her head tilted
to one side. It’s possible she has a broken neck.
Dr. Goo says, “Now the neck bones are round circles, and
the spinal cord lives inside of those round circles. Sometimes
the round circles can actually twist on itself, what we call rotation.
And if the neck bones twist on itself and rotate, then it can cause
the same type of rotation of the neck with a lot of pain.”
He orders an x-ray. Dr. Goo says, “If we look at the lateral
neck film, we will see that there’s no swelling, there’s
no evidence of fractures. There is no rotation.”
Her neck isn’t broken. The other possibility is torticollis,
a stiff neck. Dr. Goo says, “Torticollis is a condition where
you get a muscle spasm. Children can get this from just a little
sleeping wrong, or sometimes it’s related to a viral infection.
We are not exactly sure what causes it, but it is a very, very
common complaint.”
He says, “Typically the child points their head away from
the side that hurts, because then it stretches that muscle, like
when you get a charlie horse you want to stretch the muscle out.”
McKenna will take Valium to relax her muscles. In a few days,
the pain should be gone.
Dr. Goo tells McKenna’s mom, “This
muscle feels tight. So what I’m going to recommend to you
is that you use warm compresses and then gently massage this.”
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