What Is The Cause Of My Forehead Dent?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I developed a depression/dent on the middle of my forehead that is circular after the birth of my second son. Whenever I bend over or pressure is applied to my abdominal area, the depression on my forehead fills up with fluid and a huge bump is visible. I have had a CT scan done and the results showed that it was not a dent on the skull surface, however it did not explain the cause. Why do I have it and will it ever go away?

A: The simple answer is I don’t know why you have it nor can I predict with any certainty if it will go away…but if I had to guess I would not think it is going to go away. Since the dent does to have a bone-basis for its presence, one can assume this is a soft tissue deficiency. That is predictable since if the dents as due to a bone issue, it would have been present essentially since birth. (short of some traumatic event) I have no doubt that the dent fill sour when you bend over but that is not because it fills with ‘fluid’ per se. That is probably due to blood vessel engorgement from the pressure which would be more obvious when the tissues are thinner.

What I would initially is to some temporary filler injections to make it more level and probably resistant to that bulging engorgement effect. If that us successful the you can eventually move on to a fat graft or fat injections for a more permanent result once you are assured that a soft tissue fill solves both problems.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana