Treating Your Bruise With A LavaBag
There are so many different ways that someone can get a bruise.
If you are like me, you've walked into furniture one too many times and that led to getting a bruise on the leg.
But in the case where you know a bruise is coming or the bruise is already there, a LavaBag can do a lot of help you reduce or get rid of the bruise all together.
Read more to find out more how a LavaBag will help in this situation.
What are bruises?
We've all experienced a bruise at least one time in our life.
Whether that was on purpose (from someone else) or on accident (like walking into furniture like the above).
Growing up, I played all kinds of sports.
So I would usually come home at the end of the day with a bruise from a baseball hitting me, or being tackled by someone and landing on a part of my body.
Or maybe it was because I got in a fight with one of my older brothers.
As I get older, bruises come more easier.
Sometimes just rolling out of bed the wrong way can end up with me getting a bruise.
So what exactly is a bruise?
According to the Cleveland Clinic:
"A bruise, or contusion, is skin discoloration from a skin or tissue injury. This injury damages blood vessels underneath the skin, causing them to leak.
When blood pools under the skin, it causes black, blue, purple, brown, or yellow discoloration. There’s no external bleeding unless the skin breaks open."
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15235-bruises
A bruise is when the skin becomes discolored after an injury that breaks open the blood vessels underneath the skin.
The blood is held underneath the skin unless the skin is broken open, at which point the person would start to bleed on the outside.
This would then need to be cleaned up and covered up so the person doesn't continue to bleed.
Now when I was young, I remember one time playfully pinching my mother.
At the time, she told me that she "bruised like a peach" and I thought she was just being silly.
But in actuality, some people as they get older will actually bruise a lot more easily.
According to the Mayo Clinic, there is a reason for this:
"Some people — especially women — are more prone to bruising than others. As people get older, the skin becomes thinner and loses some of the protective fatty layer that helps cushion blood vessels from injury."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/healthy-aging/in-depth/easy-bruising/art-20045762#:~:text=Some%20people%20%E2%80%94%20especially%20women%20%E2%80%94%20are,cushion%20blood%20vessels%20from%20injury.
So it is completely understandable why a older person would bruise more easily.
There are also certain situations where a medication will cause you to more easily bruise.
From the same Mayo Clinic article:
"Certain medications may contribute to easy bruising by decreasing the blood's ability to clot. These include aspirin; ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others); naproxen sodium (Aleve); anticoagulant medications, such as warfarin (Jantoven), dabigatran (Pradaxa), rivaroxaban (Xarelto), apixaban (Eliquis) and heparin; and anti-platelet agents, such as clopidogrel (Plavix), prasugrel (Effient) and ticagrelor (Brilinta). Some antibiotics and antidepressants also might be associated with clotting problems. As a result, bleeding from damage to small blood vessels near the skin's surface might take longer than usual to stop. This allows enough blood to leak out under the skin to cause a bruise.
Topical and systemic corticosteroids can be used to treat various conditions, including allergies, asthma and eczema. Corticosteroids thin the skin, making it easier to bruise. Certain dietary supplements, such as ginkgo biloba, also can increase bruising risk due to a blood-thinning effect."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/healthy-aging/in-depth/easy-bruising/art-20045762#:~:text=Some%20people%20%E2%80%94%20especially%20women%20%E2%80%94%20are,cushion%20blood%20vessels%20from%20injury.
If you do suspect that medications are causing you to bruise more easily, don't stop taking the medication.
Instead, go to your local physician and consult with them first.
Take the medication to the physician and then have a discussion with them about it.
They should able to provide you more information if you should continue to take the medication or not.
When is bruising the sign of a larger problem?
As I've mentioned, sometimes we just get bruises from our day to day activities.
Sometimes we are accident prone and we can't help it.
But in certain circumstances, bruising is a sign of bigger problems.
Signs in these situations include:
- Bruises appearing for no known reason
- History of easy bruising and long prolonged bleeding
- Sudden bruising after starting a new medication
These can be signs of a blood clotting or blood disease.
At that point, you should visit your local physician and speak with them about your concerns.
They should be able to let you know if it is a concern or run different tests on your blood to see if there is a problem.
Treating bruises with a LavaBag
Now that you have a better idea what a bruise is, let's talk about how you can treat your bruise before it becomes a problem.
Your first option for treating the bruise with your LavaBag is by using heat.
Since a bruise is a collection of blood collecting under the injured area, using heat will help the situation.
As mentioned in previous articles, heat helps to increase blood circulation to the area of the body the heat has been applied to.
This is the same for bruises, applying heat to the bruise will allow for increase blood flow.
This will in turn help the bruise to heal quicker.
Heat will also help with relief from pain.
So while applying the heat you will have momentary pain relief.
Start off by placing your heating pad in the microwave for 3 minutes.
Then take the LavaBag out of the microwave and wrap it in the towel.
Placing the LavaBag directly onto the bruised area my cause too much heat to be applied at once.
So wrap it in a towel and then apply it to the bruise.
Leave it there until the heat runs out.
Then give yourself another 2 hours or so before you place it on the same place again.
This is to give your body a break from the heat and also to help you avoid skin problems from too much exposure to heat.
After the two hours, you can apply it again.
But avoid applying the LavaBag more than 3 or 4 times a day.
Your second option it to apply a cold LavaBag to your bruise.
The cold LavaBag should be applied to the bruise immediately after you get the bruise.
Even if you think you might get a bruise, but one is not showing yet, you can still apply the cold LavaBag.
The cold stalls any other blood vessels from traveling to the injured area.
The cold also reduces swelling and redness to the area as well.
I usually start off with my LavaBag in the freezer.
This is because you can always heat up your LavaBag when you need it to be hot, but you can't always cool it down immediately.
So start off with your LavaBag in the freezer.
Then when you think you have the bruise you can try placing the LavaBag directly onto the bruise area.
If the LavaBag is too cold, then just like with the heat, wrap the LavaBag in a towel and then place it directly onto your skin.
Other methods
Elevate the bruise
You can help the bruise go away a little bit by elevating the part of your body that has the bruise.
Elevating it will take any fluids away from the bruise and allow it to heal more easily.
Depending on the part of the body, this might be harder.
If the bruise is on a leg or an arm, it would be easy to lie down and put a pillow underneath the appendage.
If it's on your chest or stomach or back, this will be a lot harder to do.
Eat anti-inflammatory foods
There are foods that you can eat that will help keep the inflammation down on the bruised area.
These foods include the following:
- Pineapple
- Oranges
- Lemons
- Cherries
- Fish
- Poultry
- Tofu
- Pumpkin seeds
- Crab
- Strawberries
This isn't an extensive list, but will probably give you a good start.
Also, try to keep away from processed foods, as this will counteract the affects of the above foods.
Compress
Compress the bruised area with a bandage.
Compressing it will decrease the blood flow and keep the area tight.
Sometimes when you get a bruise, that particular area will actually start to swell up.
If you compress the area, it will reduce the area and still allow for some movement.
Summary
Bruises are always uncomfortable.
And no one likes to get them.
Usually when I get them it is because of a sport I was playing, including football or basketball.
The best thing you can do once you get the bruise is to ice it right away and then all other treatments after that are through heat.
You can do this with a LavaBag and have great success with reducing the size and for how long you have the bruise.