Skull fracture concern
 

Hey just checking in. My worries has gotten a lot better over the months, but this one is overwhelming me at the moment. Please bear over with, what may seem for you guys, a stupid question. I know posting for reassurance on here makes it worse, but this one is troublesome for me.

So I just wanted to know what symptoms accompany with a skull fracture? Would you know if you had one? Will you have a severe headache worse than a concussion? The reason I ask, is because I leaned my head on a pretty hard surface followed by applying pretty hard pressure (a table to be precise). It was like at the edge of the table so the pressure was pretty focused on a small point on my skull. It started hurting so I got pretty worried if I might have depressed my skull leading to bone fragments cutting the brain tissue. But I don't know, it felt like something happened, but it might've been the skin outside the skull being hurt by the pressure.

What is more damaging to the skull. A sudden blow, or gradual increasing pressure on the skull for a longer duration.

It takes very strong forces to fracture the skull. You could not 'lean' against a hard wall with enough force to fracture your skull. You also could not tolerate the pain of slow forces that reached a level to fracture your skull.

The pain you felt is from the nerves in the many layers of skin and tissue on the exterior of the skull. They can be very sensitive and can have residual pain for long after the contact. But, that pain is not a result of injuring your brain.

You did not injure your brain.

I would caution also to NOT compress your head for the reasons
given by Mark.

We have seen a poster who had a bicycle accident and his helmet compressed the nerves in his scalp and now he has horrific attacks of neuralgia for years...and treatments have not been very effective.

If you continue to experiment on yourself, Minimac, you could end up with a much bigger grief than you have already!

If you compress and damage the nerves in your scalp and tendons at the back of the neck they will become damaged, deranged and hurt terribly and unpredictably.

http://med.uc.edu/labmanuals/ga/BRAI...EGMENT%20I%29/
figure 7.30

Thankfully I'm not experimenting anymore, I just still have some OCD tendencies I'm working to get rid of. It takes hold on me for a short while and it's almost irresistible to not test again if anything could've happened. But I find the less I seek reassurance in general (from this forum and in practice) the better I get, I just have to seek it through a bit longer and my worrisome thoughts will be over :).

Thanks for the quick replies!

Minimac,

I was hit in the head by a 20 pound anchor that was bouncing on the water 60' behind my boat which was traveling at 26 mph. I made a turn and the anchor broke free of the water and shot into the boat hitting my head before falling to the floor. Boy do I regret forgetting to put it up!

Do the math but that is a lot of force. That is what it takes to break a skull.

You are ok.

Bud

My skull was fractured in my accident, and was accompanied by a hematoma that required emergency craniotomy surgery. I didn't know I had a fracture until over a month later when I emerged from post traumatic amnesia in neuro-rehab.

I'm pretty sure you didn't fracture your skull by applying pressure as you describe. As Mark mentions it takes a pretty hard blow to fracture a skull.

Im with what these guys are saying. It takes a lot to fracture your skull. I was hit by a truck, my car crumpled on me and thats why I had a fractured skull. I had bleeding on my brain and was in a coma for awhile. I also lost like 2 years of memories and have major short term memory problems. The nerves are a tricky thing. They know how to mess with you. I've had A LOT of surgeries and can tell ya ,) I'm sorry you are scared but we are here to help you.

If you are feeling nervous, talk to your doctor, he/she can always talk to you and help you as well. Forums are not always the best places to get answers; especially for your health. Your doctor should be the final one to make the decision/call.


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