Head dents can appear suddenly due to trauma, vitamin deficiency, lupus erythematosus or cancer.
Indentations on the head (cephaly) can be congenital, harmless and do not change throughout life or appear abnormally and suddenly. In young children, dents can develop over time leading to bone deformities. Some dents disappear on their own, but there are also cases that remain permanent but do not cause harm. Check the cause if you suddenly have a sunken head, especially if it causes pain or fatigue.
Injury or head injury can lead to a depressed skull fracture, forming a depression. This is a serious injury with a high risk of affecting the nerves, causing complications including convulsions, epilepsy, and vomiting. Typical injuries include skin swelling, broken bones or hematomas, lumps on the head, and fluid accumulation around the brain and spinal cord. Dents formed by head trauma often affect consciousness, possibly causing temporary memory loss.
Vitamin A deficiency causes the bones to soften, leading to a sunken head. In some people, vitamin A deficiency can cause bones to weaken and break easily. Vitamin A deficiency is common in children and pregnant women. Blood tests help diagnose this deficiency, from which doctors advise appropriate vitamin A supplementation.
Paget’s disease is a condition in which bones in the body grow excessively. The disease can affect bones throughout the body, including the skull, leading to dimples and other abnormalities on the head. Doctors make a diagnosis based on the patient’s symptoms and may use X-rays and imaging tests to look for bone damage or disease.
Bone cancer can originate in the skull or metastasize from other organs to the bones and skull. When cancer cells metastasize to bones, they destroy tissue and form dents, bumps or other abnormalities, including dents in the head with headaches and nausea. Imaging tests such as computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) help identify cancer in the skull or brain.
Osteodystrophy often occurs in older people, accompanied by osteoporosis, causing the skull to thin, causing bone deformation. In infants and children, osteodystrophy affects the bones of the skull, causing the child’s head to flatten or appear concave. People with chronic kidney disease and kidney failure are at high risk of this disease. Because impaired kidney function disrupts the balance of calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D metabolism, causing bones to weaken.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease with common symptoms such as skin rashes. Lupus often causes bone damage and can lead to osteoporosis, avascular osteonecrosis (bone death), osteomyelitis (inflammation of the bones), and affects the skull causing abnormal dents.