Head Injury Anxiety, can't sleep

[alexvush]

Hi all!

New here...I'm 24 y/o male and I am a medical student, so definitely involved in the medical field and a prime target for health anxiety. I've struggled with HA for years, but it's been relatively in control for the past year or so...then today I whacked my head in the shower (picked up a bar of soap, went up too fast and hit my head kind of hard on the back of my skull).

I didn't black out or lose consciousness, and my symptoms are all pretty minor right now minus maybe being kind of tired. My concern is that I live alone, and I know some things can be pretty insidious with head injuries (and often go unnoticed). Basically, I really would rather not go to the ER because it's late here and I work at the hospital I would have to go to, but I also don't want to go to sleep and never wake up (dramatic, I know, but I can't escape the thought).

Any advice would help - I know people bump their heads all the time + my history of HA means I'm unlikely to be in any real danger, just can't shake this anxiety :/.

[hanshan]

Hi alexvush,

From the first website I looked at: "And it's very rare to get a traumatic brain injury from being hit on the back of the head. The back part doesn't stretch very much because it's part of the neck. If it did, people after a concussion would complain of being blind, because that's the part of the brain that controls vision." (I think the "part of the neck" bit refers to the brain continuing into the spinal cord).

Even Dr Google can be reassuring at times, but the standard response here for medical conditions has to be "if you are worried about a potential medical condition, first seek medical advice". It really only becomes full-blown health anxiety once you've had it medically checked out, been told it's okay, but still obsessively worry there might have been a mistake, etc, or you continually believe you have a serious or life-threatening illness based on mild, everyday symptoms (and again, tests can find nothing amiss). Can you call a friend to check on you in the morning?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi and welcome to NMP, Alex :welcome:

I think you have to remember all the counterevidence against there being any possible issue, how many thousands of people bang their heads in such incidents on a daily basis and it comes to nothing? Look how often children fall over playing and bang their heads. Teachers, supervisors and parents don't do anything because they know it's nothing that needs medical attention unless there has been a period of unconsciousness or they have the symptoms of something serious as a result of it. Medical advice is to only look for those troubling symptoms and get help.

Now as a med student you probably know more about the extreme cases of such slight injuries causing something serious - a curse of your anxiety using your training against you - but try to rationalise this with the % of incidents because being rare doesn't mean it will be you that becomes one of those cases, you are fair more likely to be like me who has banged his head many times and only responded with "ow!!!" and some random swearing. :biggrin: (I don't have HA, so my response is as it would be for a non anxious person)

There must be countless threads on here about this subject, they are always popping up. The advice is always the same, including by people such as Debs71 who used to be a nurse.

I suggest you do something to distract you from your anxiety and bring down your anxiety levels. Burnt it off with some gentle exercise, get outside for a walk, etc. Tire yourself out so you can get off to sleep a bit easier. Reducing your overall anxiety levels will help greatly with the worry underpinning this current focus on your head.

[Shazamataz]

If it helps, my brother recently fell off a scaffold at work, split his head open and was unconscious for a time and he is fine.

He was at the hospital for a few hours while all the tests were done and they always take ages but he came home that evening and spent the night alone and was all good. He didn't tell me til the next day or I would have insisted he come to my place but he wasn't worried. They thought it very unlikely he had concussion and he was fine.

People hit their heads all the time. I do understand your anxiety. I live alone as well and it can be anxiety-provoking when something like this happens.

But you are in medical training. Your logic will be able to tell you if you are fine or if you need checked out.

I expect you will just have a bit of a lump/sore spot for a few days.