Yes, I know that question sounds wrong. Here’s the story: I was helping a buddy build a deck, tripped, fell down and went boom, and got wallopped in the ribs by a two-by-four.
Hurts to the touch like a bruise, there’s the tenderness and everything, but there’s no discoloration, and not really any swelling (meh, there was a tiny bit of swelling at the time I did it on the weekend, but not anymore).
So is it possible to get hit like that, a hard blow, and not have the purple bruisey part of a bruise?
Yes. It’s called an “invisible subcutaneous hematoma”. It’s a bruise in an area with lots of fatty tissue. The bruise is there, you just can’t see it from the surface.
I don’t know how you’d get one around the ribs though.
ETA: It’s called an invisible subcutaneous hematoma if you’re a cadaver, and I assume it’s called the same thing if you aren’t dead yet.
Bruised ribs are a pretty common result of trauma particularly under the arm. Sometimes they need an x-ray to eliminate fracture but the treatment is just minimize movement and icing. There were two players last night sitting on the sideline at the football with icepacks on their ribs where they had taken a good shot.
Thanks. Although I’m not looking for treatment advice, I’m just wondering why it’s not “black and blue”. It’s been a week, and there are no signs of discoloration, but the slight discomfort (tenderness to the touch), still feels totally like a week-old bruise.
It hasn’t slowed me down at all and wasn’t even bothersome enough to ice at the time that I tripped, but I was expecting a nice pruple mark to show off after a couple of days.
Sometimes when I blast my shin into something that doesn’t move easily and…
well the discoloration will be found at the ankle.
After my knee surgery my ankle was purple for over a month.
People bruise differently, My Mrs. will bruise from just helping her by griping her arm, she would get a silver dollar size bruise from donating blood, and I get no noticeable bruise.
I have a small hematoma under my chin from overexerting myself after some lipo from the same area. Now, its in the healing phase. My doctor says I can’t workout vigorously until completely bled out. Is this true? I really don’t like missing this many workouts.
Last week our dog knocked me down. The next day my ass was sore and I ran to the mirror hoping to see a big black mark to brag about…and nothing! I checked every day as long as the sore-ass lasted, and never got a thing.
I’m pretty certain the answer to your question is ‘yes’. I rarely bruise- I think I’ve had 4, maybe 5 visible bruises in my life, but I’ve sustained more injuries that should have caused bruises than I can count.
In little league I fielded a grounder that took a funny hop and bounced up and hit my eyebrow; that bruised pretty bad. It turned all kinds of cool colors for over a week. Recently I had an I.V. for an outpatient procedure and it must have been the nurse’s first day because my arm was bruised for a few days. I’m sure there have been a couple others, but not nearly as many bruises as actual injuries/contusions/impacts my body has taken over the years that should have caused bruises.
My wife and kids, on the other hand, bruise at the slightest impact.
The bruise may yet appear. I took a tumble down the stairs at work back on September 2nd, but didn’t see any visible bruising until around the 11th, over a week later. Right now, I have huge ugly bruises on one knee, one shin, and one shoulder. For some reason, they just took their sweet time in coming to the surface.