I can’t speak for other people. But it happens all the time to me. I get a minor injury. But I don’t feel it till the day after.
It happened yesterday. I was in the tub, taking a shower. And I needed a new bar of soap. Fortunately (or so I thought) I have it on the windowsill next to me. So I reach over. And naturally I slip, and practically break my hip.
Fortunately I don’t break my hip. But I do bruise it. Only thing is, I don’t notice it till the next day when I get out of bed.
Does anyone else notice this weird phenomenon? And is there a medical reason for it? I have heard when you exercise, you are full of adrenaline. But I wasn’t feeling much adrenaline in the bath tub. Think about it.
Absolutely not a doctor. I do remember getting into a car crash one morning, not feeling anything, in fact I went for a run later and woke up the next morning as sore as I could be.
Simple answer that’s not really correct but works well enough as an analogy:
A part of the body gets contused or strained, and as a result it leaks blood into surrounding tissue. This triggers an immune response and the body sends all sorts of inflammatory factors into the area to deal with clean up and fight off potential infections. A local “cytokine storm” of sorts, to use the COVID lingo. This response takes hours and more to come about and reach its peak. Hence the pain the next day and later. That’s often when the bruising becomes visible too, as the deep bleeding has had the time to migrate to the surface via tissue planes.
I find this same thing happens to me all of the time. Last week I was playing tug of war with the dog. His canine tooth hit my left index finger. It didn’t break the skin. I felt it enough to say “ouch” but that was the extent (I thought!) of my injury. The next day while driving to work I happened to notice that my finger was slightly bruised. Then around noon my finger suddenly went totally numb, swelled up, and was deep purple. I was kind of nervous and thought maybe I’d have to go to the ER. I, of course, Googled it and among a few frightening things it could be, it said that it could be caused by broken blood vessels due to an injury. It said to put hot packs on it to break down the pooled blood. I went with that explanation! I wrapped it in a hot wet cloth and within 5 minutes the numbness and purple coloring were gone.
Yep, last September I face-planted while rushing to work and broke my nose and orbital bone. The concussion didn’t rear its ugly head for a couple of days after that, and I am still recovering from it. It’s been a damn slow process.
Same here, if I go out for a long, hilly cycle ride which is more than I am used to then it takes around 48 hours to catch up and another day to get something like recovered.
I find that I have to build up the distance and the pace much more carefully instead of just going out for a few days of 80-100 milers.
It just takes longer to achieve a given level of fitness and pushing too hard means it takes even longer.
Yep. Some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced took a good two and a half days post-injury to arrive. Three winters ago I’d slipped on ice and wrenched my knee trying to stop myself from falling. I was fine that day, the next day, and most of the next, then I had excruciating knee pain for three days.
I find it pretty typical to not hurt until a whole day or more later, and have since my 20s.
At any rate, I often notice bruises that I don’t remember getting. I probably did notice when I got them, but didn’t pay enough attention to remember the incident. I’m a klutz, I bang into things too often to pay attention to it.
I doubt it’s old age, though. That is, I am getting old; but I’ve been getting Mystery Bruises pretty much all my life. I don’t think I get more of them than I used to.
All the time. Booboos just chase me around.
I’m pale, so a dinky little bruise looks worse than it usually is.
Yep. You guessed it. I milk it for all its worth.
I got a corked thigh while entertaining the kid during quarantine! I’d heard about corked muscles – they are a standards of sport reporting and schoolboy literature – so I knew exactly what it was called, two hours later, after sitting down at the computer and working on something else for a while…
And then - cripes, I was hobbling around for weeks after, regretting that I hadn’t iced it immediately. But, no visible injury, no immediate pain, until I let it sit I had no idea that I was injured
I worked on my pontoon boat yesterday and finally have it in the water. I spent hours yesterday climbing up and down the steps on the trailer, which are kind of awkward. Climbing up is ok, but coming down requires me to bend my right knee further than I can comfortably flex the joint. So, up and down the steps to charge the batteries, get the motor running, etc. Repeatedly climbing up only to realize I need something on the ground.
I told my gf that I thought my knee would be a problem, even though it was just barely uncomfortable last night. Sure enough, it hurts today and will likely be a problem for a week.
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