My head is bleeding everywhere?

Head Trauma or Internal Bleeding?

• I hit my head with a machine at the gym on 12/20 or 12/21 and for a week the sides of my head were sore/bruised where they got hit. I had a CT scan on 12/22 for some lumps in my neck and I was wondering since my head went through the CT machine if they would have been able to determine if I had any damage/bleeding within my head. The reason I'm bringing this up 2.5 weeks later is because I had a warm/heavy feeling in my head the night of the accident and again tonight. It's a quick weird and warm sensation but it's not painful. My main question is if I had any problems would they have been able to tell 1-2 days later with the scan of my neck? Because I don't really want to annoy my Doc into another CT scan and seem like the boy who cried wolf. Please respond with some good advice other than "Better be safe than sorry and get the scan." I'm aware of that but I don't have the money to do so now.

• Answer:

  Thank you, Nick, for e-mailing me about your question. The focus of the CT you had on 12/22 was your neck, not on your head. It would have been a good idea to mention your head injury to your doctor but it may already have been too late to add a head CT. CTs are a great, all purpose diagnostic tool. They visualize bony structures, solid non-biological objects (like pacemakers, bullets, surgically placed magnets, etc.), some soft tissue, air and fluid. Brain bleeds, hemorrhaging, would affect you -- headaches, severe ones, are often a first sign of an undiagnosed bleed. Other signs and symptoms depend on the location of the bleed and how many areas of the brain are affected by it. Different areas of the brain control different functions, so this makes sense. The area over your left ear (Broca's area) controls speech. If there were a bleed there, you might begin to have trouble speaking. See what I mean about how location determines symptoms? You said you hit your head on the "sides", so to me me "sides" means BOTH sides but it doesn't tell me if this means the entire right & left sides or at one focus, one small area. Certainly you would be showing symptoms of some kind. The skull is a finite space. There's no room for both brain and bleed without the brain giving way. Now on to your main question "if I had any problems would they have been able to tell 1-2 days later with the scan of my neck?". CTs show immediate results of trauma and any existing trauma. 1-2 days later would NOT have been a problem. But the only way a neck CT would show a problem in the brain is if you had significant hematoma that was herniating your brain. With a herniation, there's no place for the brain to go except through the magna foramen & down into the spinal canal and would show on neck CT. Of course if you had a hematoma significant enough to herniate, you would not be conscious. This condition is not compatible with life. Of course your head had to be inside the scanner. How could it not be? Your neck is below it and obviously there's no way to alter that. But a neck CT is a focused imaging. Your neck was the target. Not your head. Some people have a type of migraine headache that actually produces a tingling sensation that's interpreted as a warm, wet feeling. Just a thought. But Nick, mention this to your doctor. I won't tell you to "Better be safe than sorry and get the scan." because that decision isn't yours to make. And anyone who DOES say this, doesn't know how medicine (the practice of doctors) operates. If anything, I imagine your doctor might order a head X-ray and until and unless you develop symptoms that are less subtle and more substantial, don't expect to be told much more than to "keep an eye on it" and "let me know if anything else develops". Thank you for giving me this opportunity to help. Nick, have I answered your questions to your satisfaction? Was there anything else you wished to ask?