I have had ADD symptoms for as far back as I can remember which was the age of 5. When I was 5 my mom was rearended by a car and I went through the windshield of our car. My head literally broke the entire windshield of our Cadilac. My mom says that i was taken to the hospital but no major tests were performed and the Drs. said I probably had a concussion and to take me home and watch me but she also says that my major issues didnt start until after that accident but she never put 2 and 2 together. I know the frontal lobe is a very complicated area of the brain and that it is highly susceptible to injury. What do you guys think? How many of you had head injurys as a child?

I've told this story on the forum before but when I was about 5 I fell head over heels down the basement stairs and smashed my head on the cement.

I remember feeling sick and dizzy. For a long time after I kept getting these what I call "feelings" that I discused with the Dr. that Dx my ADD when I was in my 30's. She told me it sounded like I was having seizures.

Although she didn't think that's were my ADD started because I have family with it. She did wonder if my LDs might have come from the fall.

when i was about 4 or 5 i fell off my top bunk bed,(long story) and when i fell the railing that was suppose to hold me in there broke off and it jabbed the side of my head , like in my temple area, then i guess my head hit the floor as well,, and then i was rushed to the hospital and had to get a bunch of stiches,,, now i still have the scar and its somewhat visible .... i wonder if that has something to do with adhd cuz my grandma told me she use to have me read and at four or younger i knew alot and was wicked smart, although i was a terror when when i was younger, (still sumtimes ha),,, so i wonder the the correlation would be

I fell face first onto the concrete sidewalk as I was tripped when I was 4. I was taken to the hospital by ambulance and spent the night. I lost my sense of smell after that.

sheesh, crazy 4 and 5 year olds...

in my room, i had one of those desks, that had a bookshelf on top of it..and i wanted to get a book from the top shelf..so genius me climbed the bookshelf...and the thing just toppled over on top of me...yeah, i was flattened by a bookshelf :(

but i dont think i had any injuries really...it woulda been the back of my head that got hurt...unless the bookshelf hit the front...i dunno! and i have no clue how old i was...prob in the 5yr range though

odd we all had something happen in the same age range,,,,,,,, and these were all front head injuries right,,, um

I fell off a pool ladder when I was young. I dont know how old i was at the time, or how far I fell. I was dxed when i was in 7th grade.

Yes, very interesting!

when i was about 4 or 5 i fell off my top bunk bed,(long story) and when i fell the railing that was suppose to hold me in there broke off and it jabbed the side of my head , like in my temple area, then i guess my head hit the floor as well,, and then i was rushed to the hospital and had to get a bunch of stiches,,, now i still have the scar and its somewhat visible .... i wonder if that has something to do with adhd cuz my grandma told me she use to have me read and at four or younger i knew alot and was wicked smart, although i was a terror when when i was younger, (still sumtimes ha),,, so i wonder the the correlation would beTHAT sound like a typical ADD youth...It is very rare to get ADD from head trauma. Many times it exacerbates some of the pre-existing ADD signs. ADD is a very complex set of brain changes. You actually get more brain in one place and less in another...kind of a brain matter switcharoo :)

Anyway, you sound like you have had it all along. My daughter does and she is wicked smart and artistic.

Oh yeah and almost every kid has some head trauma at some point :) Brain damage on that level is not subtle and there would be clear signs of impairment that would have caused alarm.

Anyway, ADD is not brain damage and it is much different than issues with impulsivity and inattention (Those just happen to be easy things to pin on it)

THAT sound like a typical ADD youth...It is very rare to get ADD from head trauma. Many times it exacerbates some of the pre-existing ADD signs. ADD is a very complex set of brain changes. You actually get more brain in one place and less in another...kind of a brain matter switcharoo :)

Anyway, you sound like you have had it all along. My daughter does and she is wicked smart and artistic.

Oh yeah and almost every kid has some head trauma at some point :) Brain damage on that level is not subtle and there would be clear signs of impairment that would have caused alarm.

Anyway, ADD is not brain damage and it is much different than issues with impulsivity and inattention (Those just happen to be easy things to pin on it)Agreed that ADD is not brain damage but I have read on many sites (please dont ask me to prove it cuz I cant remember what sites lol) that ADD can be genetic and/or caused by a signifigant head injury as a child. Now, that said I am no where near as studied on this subject as you are just my little bit of reading and the little bit that happens to stick in my brain.:)

Yes, ADD is fairly often caused by brain injuries from accidents. Not always, but often. Yes, I am sure we all can remember bumping our heads at some point in our youth. The skull is pretty good protection, and the various head bumps that every kid gets is not usually enough to really damage the brain, I don't think. However, a lot of the accidents described here definitely sound severe enough to have given you ADD/ADHD. Breaking the windshield of a car with your head as you fly through it?? Having something jab your temple bad enough that you need stitches? (The temple is the vulnerable spot that the skull doesn't quite cover, so I would think we would be more susceptible to injury there.) Concussions? All these could lead to real problems.

Here's a reference:
Daniel Amen has a chapter on brain injuries and ADD in his book: Healing ADD. It's ch 11, entitled "Soft Brain, Hard Skull: Head-trauma-induced ADD"

I think there is a big difference between ADD and head trauma, unless genetic ADD could drop the term ADD... there are striking similarities in the narrow range of symptoms described in DSM...but they do not see ADD very clearly. I know a woman who has brain trauma with symptoms like ADD but she was most likely aspergers before...

It depends on what you want to call ADD. I call it IRCM... that can happen after a soft brain injury but it is missing a vital component, the increase in gray matter in the rear of the temporal lobe.

I can't remember how old I was ...7 or 8 maybe....I was skateboarding in my room. I don't know how or why, it wasn't that big of a room. Well the skateboard went one way & I went the other, right into my babydoll crib--face first!! I got a nice cut above my eye, & still have the scar almost 30 yrs later. I think there's stilll a whole in the wall where my board landed!!

I'm sure my ADHD symptoms ARE NOT from a head injury--I think my head injury is a RESULT OF my ADHD.

This is very interesting...I have had two trama accidents. At 8, my mother was hit broadside by someone that ran a stop sign. It literally cut the front door off the '64 Buick Electra that we were in. My mother and I were both thrown from the car. It completely knocked my mother out. I can't remember if I bumped my head or not.

The following year, I was climbing the monkey-bars on the school playground and fell face first onto the hard Georgia clay. It knocked me out momentarily. I had pushed my nose so far back into my face, just the tip stuck out. I had to have plastic surgery for that, and my two lower front teeth cut completely through the skin just below my bottom lip. I still have that scar. The surgeon told my mother if I had pushed in any farther, I probably wouldn't be here.

When my mother was a child (8 I think), she and one of her sisters were chasing one another and my mother tripped and fell. When she landed, she busted her skull open on a large rock. She lost her vision for a long time and actually had to go live with the doctor and his wife so the doctor could see after her. This was back in 1932. Also, my mother has a benign brain tumor on the drainage tube which they could not remove back in 1983, so they bypassed it with a shunt to drain spinal fluid. I know what this tumor is called, but can't remember the term.

When my daughter was born, she had a hemangioblastoma also attached to the drainage tube, which if never discovered causes the same thing my mother has now. It was removed when she was 8 months old.