About a week ago, I was stupid enough to walk into the kitchen in the dark…and my shins found the dishwasher open. :eek:
And since then of course, my shin has been hurting. But TODAY I noticed a massive bruise, on my inner-ankle below the actual injury site.
I am not going to a doc, so you are not my doc, but I’m presuming that the ankle has more blood vessels likely to rupture than the shin itself.
Am I halfway there…or am I likely to be looking at an amputation?? :D:D
Gravity. Maybe.
In my experience hitting something sensitive blocks the pain from other injuries. I once had an accident where I broke my leg badly and didn’t even realize I had also fractured 3 ribs until I got to the hospital and they started prodding me all over.
Sorry Kam, but it’s age … and gravity … which have much the same effect when you get to our vintage.
Don’t be so dramatic!
When they amputate, they won’t make you watch.
They won’t let you watch. The last thing I remember was leaning up to watch what they were doing… fortunately I still have all my parts.
I vote for venous insufficiency: blood clots are preventing clearance.
But it could just be that you twisted your ankle when you ran into that washer…
A bruise is loose blood under the skin after it escaped from damaged vessels. Why couldn’t it have sunk to your ankle?
I second the likelihood of gravity.
Something similar happened after my breast surgeries; the bruising settled at the bottom, and faded from the top down.
Another anecdote: In 2011, I had extensive dental work, including a root canal. Several days later, as I was driving to work, something that took less than 10 minutes, I felt something “give”, and when I arrived, I looked in the mirror and my cheek was green, which it hadn’t been a few minutes earlier. :eek: I called the office when they opened, and they told me this was not abnormal and not to worry about it as long as I showed no signs of infection.
My dad bashed the back of his head earlier this year and a few days later had a MASSIVE bruise down the side of his neck, with no pain in his neck. I talked to an ER doctor friend and and ER nurse friend and both confirmed that the cause of the bruise was just gravity, as others here have said.
I had knee surgery a few years ago. The bruising originally appeared at the top of my shin but within a week or so gravity had migrated it into a long streak down my whole shin.
My understanding is that this isn’t uncommon for a large bruise.
See post #2. Hah! For once I was right. Go me.
HAH! I can answer this with the voice of experience!
Years ago, I was trying to climb into the back of a full size van, through the slider door. I have short, fat legs, lousy balance, and I thwacked the shit out of one shin on the step.
Days later, I had a swollen, rainbow ankle.
I actually went to my doctor. She told me the shin is essentially bone right beneath the skin: no muscle, no fat, no connective tissue. When you injure the shin and make it bleed, there is nothing to hold the blood next to the injury. And Number Two answer wins, gravity pulls that mess down to your ankle!
Your ankle is fine. But treat the discoloration like any other bruise, moist heat, elevate, and avoid aspirin.
~VOW
Thank you.
Hemorrhaged blood will travel from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. Sometimes this is determined by gravity, but not always. Fascial planes serve as convenient routes for the spilled blood to migrate along.
Thanks all, no amputation starts my year off quite nicely. 
I knew it. I knew you would come in and burn me once again. Can’t you let me have just one win?
Your correct of course. Again. As always I bow to your expertise.