Injuries

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If your Aspie gets an injury does he or she notice?

One time he was running around outside at the park barefoot when he stepped on something and cut his big toe right to the bone. After a while he put his shoes on and we went home. Everything seemed fine until the next day when we got ready to go away. He looked in his shoe and saw the blood. we took him to the hospital and they said it needed a stitch but they could not do anything because it had been more than 24 hours. I felt really stupid for not knowing but at the time he didn't say anything and we had been gone all day since we were in the middle of planning a wedding. The nurse at the hospital didn't believe me when I told her that he didn't notice.


Then last year at school he slammed his finger in the classroom door. He didn't say anything to anyone. He was acting as if nothing had happened. The teacher saw it happen but when she asked he told her he was fine. Later that day when he got home. He was trying to draw a picture and he couldn't hold the pencil right because his finger was swollen. He started complaining that his finger wouldn't work right. I looked at it and noticed it was swollen and purple. I thought we better get it x-rayed. It was broken. Again, the doctors and nurses thought he was lying because he told them it didn't hurt when it happened. It can be embarrassing when you take your kid in and he has no idea how he got hurt. I swear sometimes they must think I am an awful mom.

Of course, if his brother beats him up he screams like crazy. If he is aware of the injury he gets upset. A few weeks ago he tripped and hit his nose causing it to bleed. He saw the blood dripping from his face and freaked out.

I was just curious if any other aspies are like that?

I do that sort of thing a lot. Twice I've wiped out extremely hard on my bike and both times I just got back on and kept riding because it didn't feel like anything more than a little scratch. The first time i ignored it until someone else saw me and pointed out that my arm and knee were covered in blood and the second time I only looked at it because I remembered the first time. I tend to not notice any pain until I get a headache from it that bothers me. The only other injuries I notice are anything with my hands but only once I try and use them.

I notice if I get hurt right away, I am very aware. Maybe only some Aspies don't notice it all the time.

My son is the same - we walked 12 km once, and by the time we got home his feet were a bloody mess and he hadn't told us they were hurting!
I think there are two explanations in his case. When he was younger, he didn't think to tell us (sad). Also, it seems to be a sensory issue related to under/overreaction to stimuli. We have just started with a physiotherapist, who among other things is going to "brush" his body, the idea being that it increases body and sensory awareness. We can learn how to do it, and brush him at home, which hopefully will be a nice relaxation excercise (I'm crossing my fingers - he is not a great "relaxer", he has just started on ritalin for ADHD problems!)
The physiotherapist says often the same child will overreact to some stimuli (noise, the feeling of clothes ect.), and underreact to others, for example pain. Maybe that's the case with your son?

YES! Katrine---you hit the nail on the head.

My son had severe sensory issues, and, after sensory integration therapy, he now FEELS pain.

Before, there were actually several incidents of him causing harm to himself (standing in fire ant beds---seeking them out, poking his own eyes, scratching himself til he was bloody, etc...) and not crying. There were also several times that he had accidents, and appeared completely oblivious.

I know now that he wasn't "tough", but that he had severe sensory issues.

We did brushing several times a day, and we've incorporated other items into his sensory diet.

Bamellis--Talk to your school district about getting him some sensory integration therapy or whatever they happen to call it where you live.

Good luck!

(By the way, my son is autistic. I (an aspie) also had these issues, but they are much less severe now. I now just have a "high tolerance" for pain. It works out great for tattoos and exercise.. )

hubby has this happen ALL the time...i know the pain must be EXCRUCIATING for him to complain.

Tristan has the sensory issues. He chews his clothes and walks on the backs of his shoes destroying every pair he owns. He has to have only Vellux blankets and won't use anything else. If there are tags in his shirts and I don't get them out before he wears them he will destroy the shirt to get it out. Of course, I do the same thing with tags.

Then he doesn't notice pain. It makes no sense to me.

I hate itchy scratchy tags in my clothes and will either unpick them with a needle or cut them off just flush to the seam. In the summer, I find it almost impossible to wear closed in shoes due to their feeling as if they are suffocating my feet.

Sometimes, I can injure myself and not realise it has happened until I feel what I think is water running down my leg and then when I look down, it is blood.

I still do it to this day....

Being a carpenter you get the odd nick and scratch - scratch I will feel and will hurt, a serious cut on the other hand you can't feel. I have often walked around for hours feeling dizzy when I notice drops of blood on the concrete work and finally see a drop fly accros infront of my veiw that I realise that it came from me.

... I dunno if this is an Aspie thing or not though. I'm sure there are plenty of NT people out there that have had 'quick clean cuts' and not known that it happened to them.


About those accidents that actually hurt/sting - yeah I just keep on working, usually if it looks like it don't need first aid I don't care, as long as there is nothing stuck in there like a peice of timber or metal. As a kid when riding motor bikes , I always got back on - actually I had no choics, I would always ride in remote areas, so even if I did hurt myself - I 'HAD TO' get back home somehow.

...I highly doubt it's an AS thing... some people just like to whing, and if there are a higher AS population of non-whingers I wouldn't be surprised. -I have always hated the type that get's a little knick and goes to the medicine cabinet straight away - if you ask me they are the ones that have some sort of OCD.

My 10 yo Aspy son is very aware of injuries but I also have an older nt son with a very high threshold of pain we had to teach him to take body scans to check if he had injurred himself. I know that may be very difficult with an Aspy bit you may find it necessary. Good luck!

oddly enough, I always thought my daughter to have the absolute lowest pain tolerance EVER, all through growing up, but I may actually have been wrong.

I think what I believed to be low pain tolerance, was actually more to do with her sensory issues/anxiety more than anything else. She used to scream when we brushed her hair and equally when she saw blood, but in retrospect, I don't think it was in direct relation to a "physical pain".

She can get a needle at the dr/dentist, if her eyes are closed and believes it is something other than (like dr pinching her to get the "bugs" to jump so he can find them), without a single complaint or squint of the eye and she slipped on the stairs, fell and cried because of the shock, but when we asked her to move her arms and legs about and went searching for any physical pain, she denied any. It wasn't until a second fall within a couple of days that I opted to take her to the hospital for x-rays (just to be sure). The teacher thought I was out of my mind when I arrived to pick her up, said she wasn't cradling any of her limbs, that she had been working hard on her art all afternoon and didn't think it was necessary to take her to the Dr. When all the while, she was using a BROKEN arm. *gasp*

Now, to ask me if it has anything to do with being an aspie~I couldn't say.

But I thought I would share our experiences with this.