My daughter (who is now a happy healthy 19 yr old) was in a car accident when she was 9. She was knocked unconscious for about 20 min and had a concussion, which led to severe headaches for over two years. She was put on Amitriptyline for about 6 months or so (hard to remember exactly how long after this time!). It helped, but it did not completely get rid of the headaches. Looking back, I would say that her brain needed the time to heal and there was probably no drug we could have put into her that would have completely removed the pain.

It was very hard for us to see her hurting. We also noticed cognitive effects after the injury. As an example, she was (and still is) a very bright kid, but for the year after the accident would frequently (and seemingly randomly) not be able to do pretty easy math problems. Her teacher, who knew her well from before, commented on this. She did seem to recover from this after about a year or so.

The good news is that she did recover–the headaches got less frequent over time and are gone. It took much longer than anyone explained to us, though. And it was a fight sometimes to advocate for her to the doctors and school.

One thing about the Amitryptyline to watch for is that it can cause tremendous weight gain. I saw this in our daughter and also in a friend that took it. She lost the weight over time, but it made her very uncomfortable.