Obviously, if I were worried about this I would go to the doctor. I’m sure this is something akin to/part of the bruise and will go away within a few weeks, but I’m just curious.
Last Monday I slipped, fell, and took the brunt of the force with my bicep smashing into the edge of my bathtub. It looks ugly as hell, but is finally fading into yellow and green in spots, and shrinking. It doesn’t hurt much, except in two spots, which when probed reveal a pea-sized lump deep under the skin.
So what is this? Remaining swelling in the hardest-hit areas? They’re very well defined (and gross), and I’d love to know the medical explanation for them!
In early February I took a spill on some ice (ok, ok, I had had a couple of beers, but there was legitimate ice!) and an area on my thigh seemed to have taken the worst of the damage. I had a big bruise, about 10" long and 3" wide.
For about 2 days afterward teh muscle (quadricep?) hurt like hell when I walked, but that went away and the bruise disappeared in about a week.
Except a small area is still tender when I put pressure on it, and in some lights I can see there is still a shadowy “bruise” in the tender area. What gives? I’m old (42) and I know we old people don’t heal as well or as quickly, but I think 12 weeks is an awful long time for the area to still be cranky.
And to answer the OP, I have felt lumpy parts under serious bruises before. Probably not as severe as the ones described, but I’ve definitely felt lumps.
I did the same thing, except getting into a tub and took the brunt of the fall on my leg. I had the same thing - a very nasty bruise with lumps under it.
Motorgirl, when I’ve had really severe bruises like that, I’ve found that the residual tenderness takes a really long time to go away, too - like a year or so. From everything else I’ve seen, I’m a fast healer, so I’m just assuming that I did a lot of damage, and it took a long time to all heal up.
Might be worth a trip to the doc’s office for an evaluation. Not to scare you, but I do have a cautionary tale: blood clots are possible in a bruise like that and you DO NOT want one to break off and hit your heart.
I took a helluva horse kick to my thigh back in my early 20s. The horse was an ex-racer and high strung as hell. I did something wrong - don’t know what - and PRESTO! Perfect half horse-shoe print on my right side. The minute my Master saw it, he said, ‘go to the doctor.’
Sure enuf, my GP put me on blood thinners for a couple of weeks just to be safe.
I hit up the doc and he said they’re just hematomas - areas where the blood pooled and gummed up. They’re supposed to fade away over the next 2-3 weeks. He said if there was a clot or something, it would be hot, really sore, or I’d have swelling in the arm. Still, good to know for sure!
This happened to me when I was hit by a car door while riding my bike. I had a huge bruise about 3-4 inches wide and 6 inches long on my thigh that took about 2 weeks to heal. It’s no longer tender, but to this day there’s a light grey spot that I’d describe exactly the same way- it looks like a slight shadow on my leg. And I’m not old either, this happened last summer when I was 23.
Other bruises I get normally are a little lumpy. Right now I have a little lump of a bruise from having blood drawn. Other times I’ve been able to feel them through my pants which was weird. I’ve never asked a doctor about it though.
ETA: Didn’t see that ** Unauthorized Cinnamon** called the doctor. I probably have the same thing then. Thanks for the info!
Recently I had a 6 inch bruise that I didn’t know happened until the weird colorization hit. A week later I realized there was a small hard lump. It lasted another week. I was just hoping it wasn’t another calcium growth after trauma. You can grow bone in tissue after a blunt trauma.