Head Banging Injury Concern

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I've read that head banging is somewhat common (20%) in children 18-24 months. My son is 23 months. I know this is also a sign of autism, and combined with all the other signs I sort of figure it's more that than normal. He bangs his head when angry or frustrated. Anyhow, yesterday he banged his head on the table because his meal was not supplied fast enough (he still basically cries and has meltdowns to communicate - we're working on sign language to bridge the gap) and he bounced his face off of the table and gave himself a bloody nose. Of course hearing this (I was not home, hubby was) about makes me come unglued. My husband was concerned as well, said he cuddled him until he stopped crying. It's bad enough my child bounces his own head off of things but now he's causing himself injury - which is what concerned us most. His nose is fine, but my nerves aren't.

Is there anything I can do to help him out of this phase? Any suggestions or info in general on head banging?

I used to work with autistic etc kids and the strategy was to distract not react to inappropriate behaviour. If the head banging is getting a reward whether that is the provision of what he wants or a telling off for doing it , then that could reinforce the behaviour but if you can find some way to ignore what he does but get him focus on something else, then give the reward it may help.
I was told not to worry too much about head banging because no matter how bad it looked they would moderate it so it didn't really hurt them, but I am not completely convinced about this, I think the tolerance to pain can increase and if they are having a meltdown they may not care. However, maybe the nose injury was a miscalculation by your son and he will now be more careful or look for different strategies.
We used Makaton sign language and it seemed to work okay for the kids that had the physical ability to use it, even those with apparent severe disability, lack of language, poor physical control and no speech. For physically disable non-verbal kids we had pictures and eye-pointing or head switches with consoles.