Bumping into large wooden cabinet doors
 

How concerning are these if bumped into?

My smoke detector started randomly chirping really loud a few minutes ago and so I scrambled out of bed to check it out. It's high up on the wall and next to a huge and extremely heavy tv cabinet that has large, thick wooden doors to encase the tv. They swing out like most drawers and are much thicker than tv cabinet doors I'm seeing in Google Images. It's one of those older cabinets meant to hold big screen crt tvs from 1990s and early 2000s. The doors themselves are quite sturdy and tall (about 5 feet) - and certainly much more so than say a cupboard or medicine cabinet door.

I had to get a step stool to reach the smoke detector. After I checked it out, I whacked my head into the extended cabinet door as I forgot in the moment that it was behind me. It happened so quickly that I can't recall if I:

- hit my head on the door while jumping down and backwards from the step stool
- hit my head on the door as I was already standing and hit with either a quick head turn or stepping backwards, etc.

I had on a pair of earmuffs to protect my ears against the sound since I have hyperacusis and the beeping was annoying. I'm not sure if it was a flush hit into the back my head or side of head square-on, or if I partially bumped part of the earmuffs into the door, etc. I just remember feeling the whack and yelling "ow!" When I'm anxious, like a smoke detector going off, I tend to bounce around like an idiot and not take my time to pay attention to my surroundings.

Have a bit of a headache as is often the case. Would you guys be concerned at all, or just brush it off as a run of the mill non-concerning/harmless bump?

Thanks.

I am looking at a TV cabinet like you describe. We have converted it to a computer printer cabinet. If I hit that door with a 60G impact, the heavy door would be damaged.

I could tell from your write-up that this was an anxiety issue and your anxiety was trying to convince you that this cabinet door did damage.

As I tell others who post anxiety ridden posts like this, I will not enable your anxiety with an answer.

I hope you will answer this one question.

What difference does it make whether the impact was damaging or not?

It already happened.

Hey keeponmovin,

As a bald man I find I bump my head quite often as hair gives us information as to where our head is in relation to things. Without hair we lose this information. However these are harmless bumps like the ones you describe. They are non concerning and run of the mill.

Nothing to see here.

Best wishes,

Atty

I realize it's a much different point of view when there's adrenaline and anxiety. I'd imagine a lot of us enjoy the placebo of reassurance given how wishy washy doctor visits can be. And concussive forces can be pretty tough to gauge or really set in reality at times. My worst concussion of the last decade was an assault from a woman who at the time weighed about 25-30 lbs less than me and I could barely tolerate lights and had trouble driving at night for nearly a month, in addition to absolutely brutal daily headaches. And that was just from a single hammer fist strike (closed fist) to the top/side of my head.

You still didn't answer my question.

What kind of reassurance are you looking for?

Reassurance of what?

What would you do differently as you go on with your life if the bump was damaging versus if it was not damaging?

That answer might help you decide that these bumps do not matter because they do not change anything.

The way you write tells me you struggle seriously with anxiety. You need to get help with those thought processes.

Did you know anxiety is the number 2 factor in serious complications from Covid? Right behind heart disease. Anxiety seriously interferes with the immune system because it draws so much energy from the body.

Anxiety is also a leading predictor of developing long term symptoms from a concussion.

You may have low serotonin and norepinephrine levels. That can be resolved. with meds or natural supplements.
The headache you suffered can be related to depleted norepinephrine from the physical and emotional trauma of the attack.

The meds have side-effects that are not usually common to the natural supplements.

Google 'naturally increase serotonin and epinephrine'