OT I think my kid broke his nose!!

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

OK I am a nurse and have never seen someone get knocked off their feet forward and not backwards but that is what my little guy did. He fell over a bunch of ballons from a party I had yesterday. Anyhow he was bleeding profusly and the bridge of his nose is completely swollen and purple with 2 black eyes almost immediately. What gets me is the doctor said there is nothing they can do and at the age of 4 they have very little bone in their nose. No xrays no nothing just watch him and try to ice it. Has anyone ever been through this with their boys? Maybe I am over analyzing because I am a nurse and that whole Natasha Richardson thing. Would you listen to the doc or go to the ER?

I just bet our vacation pictures will be wonderful. Hopefully he wont look like this in 2 weeks. I look like crappo mom.

 

[ckdsnynt]

Extreme worrier here and my kids are grown (many years). ER for me!

Or maybe an a.m./ p.m. clinic unless the dr. actually saw the child in person. I would want a medical person to see him (if your dr. didn't). If he did, I would go with that.

 

[RutgersAlum]

I have to second the ER, but I'm a worrier too. And I've broken my nose and not had it set. And had to later have it rebroken to set it properly. Yuck...

GL GL GL

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

I hate to question the doctor, but my grandma broke her nose as a kid. It was never set and to this day she suffers from nose bleeds. Can we say this is why, no, but she is pretty convinced it is especially after all these years they have yet to be diagnosed. It's tough, I adore my peditrician, but if he said no and my gut said yes, my gut would have to override him. I agree, an urgent care may be a better option then an ER, but I'd go somewhere.

 

[DVCsince02]

Liz, get him to the ER. You will feel better. Hugs to Ethan.

 

[doctorhead]

if you want to throw money away, go to the ER. i've worked in a pediatric ER. they are going to tell you the same thing. no good doctor is going to x-ray a child's head and expose them to that kind of radiation for no reason. they don't fix children's noses until they're older. if it would make you feel better, take the kid there. but you're just going to pay a lot of money out of pocket and spend a bunch of time in the waiting room in order to be told that there's nothing they can do. also, do you really want your kid's brain exposed to radiation at his age?

at a young age, it's true that there's very little bone in your nose. it's mostly cartilage (like your ear). it's bendable and soft. if he fell on it, it's going to bleed like crazy (not because he broke his cartilage, but because there are lots of tiny blood vessels in the tip of your nose). it looks a lot more serious than it is. just ice it and you will see that the swelling will go down and his face will return to normal. trying to fix his nose at this point is the equivalent of putting braces on baby teeth.

ps - i am going into emergency medicine this summer. i have insight into what's protocol.

 

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

Whew, I feel better now. My husband was working the ER tonight not NICU so I got him into fast track with his friend who is the PA o/c tonight. He didnt do an xray but said it was just a tramatic injury to his soft tissue. Give him motrin and since we are past the point of concussion time all should be OK. Thanks for listening to the craziness of a worried mama.

 

[SamSam]

Ahh, we Momma's have a right to worry.
I'm glad the news is good and that it is only injury to soft tissue; traumatic enough, but still good news.

 

[DisnyMama]

You have to listen to your own gut feeling. When My DS was about 14 he was up to bat at one of his baseball games and was hit right between the eyes by a pitch. Bloody nose, black and blue eyes and swelling-YUK! Of course he was wearing a batting helmut and the coach tried to say the ball didn't hit him directly in the face but that it hit the helmut and bounced off his nose? Well, we took him to the ER and nose was broken and we have pictures taken the next day where you can see the stitches from the baseball right between his eyes.

 

[Ms. Belle]

I'm sorry your little man is going through this. I just recently broke by nose (in a car wreck) and the dr's told me the same thing. Ice it and wait. I felt the same way you did - I can't wait!! So I went to a ENT who told me the same thing. If the nose heals crooked, then he would do surgery. Luckily, my nose healed straight. I know what you are going through, it's tough to wait, especially to see your little guy suffer, but hopefully he will get through this ok.