Dumb question, but is it possible to get a head injury from slowly pressing one’s head too hard against something (ie, a wall,) - as opposed to rapid impact -and is there a medical term for it?
Bruise?
If enough pressure was applied for long enough I would think it might be possible to develop some kind of subdural hematoma which could be serious, but I’m not a doctor, just a guess.
I’m not sure if you could really injure yourself (other than maybe a bruise) from doing that once.
That said, a zebibah, or prayer bump, is a callus that develops on some Muslims’ foreheads, due to years of praying with their foreheads pressed to their prayer mats.
You’re not going to get a brain injury from simply pressing your forehead or the top of your head against a wall too hard. You can get all sorts of facial injuries to tissue and even bone from doing this. The thin bone over the sinuses are vulnerable, pretty tough, but the right pressure in the right direction could do some serious damage. Obviously the eyes, nose, ears, and lips could suffer compression injuries. A protrusion from the wall could actually injure your brain indirectly by crushing areas around the eyes and nose, which seems impossible for any normal human to do without experiencing enormous pain first, or a large enough and sharp enough protrusion could penetrate the skull with enough pressure, again the kind likely to produce tremendous pain well before hand.
what about side of the skull, which is the thinnest part of the skull?
Need answer fast?
I think your head would have to be odd shaped because thicker parts of the skull would be pressing against the wall also. Or there would have to be a protrusion. It is the temple area that you are talking about, not the entire side of your head.
What you are thinking of may be a compression injury? I don’t think it can cause too much just from the strength of your muscles pressing and with a hard surface on only one side.
If the pressure came from both sides, I imagine the pressure on the brain would eventually be increased, when the skull began to flex inward.
If the pressure was directly to the correct spot on a temple it might disrupt blood flow. I’m not sure how severely, or whether other pathways would fill in.
Overall though, the primary cause of brain injury is sudden stops or starts, which cause the brain to slosh against the inside of the skull. Muscle-strength pressure from only one side is unlikely to cause deep injury except to a very young child whose skull hadn’t yet hardened.
Doing a prolonged headstand? Guiness record attempt?
Unless you press it hard enough to fracture it, the fact that it’s thinner than other parts of the skull won’t mean that it protects the brain within less well.
IANAD, but I’m expecting that pressure-type injuries in the skull area are going to be at skin level - blood vessels, sores, bruises - and not to do with the brain or the bones.
The first thing you will do is get a contusion.
Then you get dead flesh - an ulcer… gangrene … pressure sore.
You could of course press so hard you tear the flesh apart resembling a laceration, which might be in combination with ulcer and contusion.
If the force increases enough, then the fracture to the bone would resemble, and behave like, a “stress fracture”. Except if you do it to a baby, and the skull deforms, perhaps tearing open at the seams.
Interesting. However, it feels much more uncomfortable if someone were to press their fingers or something hard into the ‘soft’ part ahead of one’s ears in the side of the skull than anywhere else on the head (i.e., when someone is doing hard Chinese massage on the head - those were sometimes so forceful that I was worried.)
Hydraulic press.
Technically, the brain never (normally) touches the inside of the skull, but there are always a few millimeters of cerebrospinal fluid between the brain and skull right?