Lots of bruises, googled it like an idiot

[eminence]

Hi everyone,

A few days ago I started counting the bruises on my legs, totaling 24. There's a lot of them and strangely all of them are small and green. I got curious and stupidly decided to keep googling it until I learned about leukemia bruising and made things even worse by looking up the symptoms of leukemia until I had lost my appetite and spent the entire day in bed, convinced I have cancer.

A part of me wants to get a blood test to clear things up, but I know that I could just be feeding my anxiety. If my blood test results are suspicious I'll be sure that I'm already dead. If they come back okay or if the doctor doesn't take me seriously I'll be convinced that the system has got it wrong and I'm already dead. I DO have a lot of mysterious bruises and I AM feeling fatigued and aching right now, so at what point should I justify another appointment? How do you guys draw the line between an innocent doctors visit and excessive reassurance seeking?

[serith]

Is there anything you've been doing that could reasonably cause the bruises?

Also I would discount "fatigued and aching" as a symptom, anxiety can easily cause that.

Seems like you've nicely summed up the problem of whether or not to get a blood test based on how it will affect you. Kudos to that self-awareness :)

I would suggest:

-Asking a friend for input-- not a friend prone to anxiety-- would they go to the doctor in your position?

-Just waiting a few weeks and see what happens. Do the bruises go away and not come back? -Chances are very high they will. I know it can be so hard to wait. But sounds like you're having a hard time no matter what, and if you do wait and the bruises vanish and don't return, that will be a GREAT experience to help heal anxiety in the future.

Here's what I would do if I were you (and what I think a reasonably intelligent person w/o HA would do):

Decide that you're going to wait a certain timeframe. I would suggest 4 weeks, but if that sounds too long, try 2 or 3. DO NOT CHECK THEM CONTINUALLY. Do not torture yourself like that. See if you can only check them AT MOST once a day. Better if it's only once every 2 or 3 days. After 4 weeks, re-evaluate the situation. And when you check them, don't start marking them or counting them or anything, don't obsess. Just glance over it all, and see the gestalt of the situation. You'll know from a glance if the situation is better or worse or stayed the same... learn to listen to your instinctual knowledge!

It honestly would be kinder to yourself to not check at all for 4 weeks, just avoid looking at your legs, BUT chances are they will go away a lot sooner than 4 weeks, and you could save yourself a lot anxiety if you noticed they had gone away-- so that's why I suggest once a day AT MOST. (Or maybe if you really want to test out eliminating your anxiety, you could commit to really not checking at all for 4 weeks-- that would be a tremendous learning experience).

If by some tiny remote chance, you do have leukemia, you'll still have it in 4 weeks and it won't be any different. The situation is not going to change from hour to hour, or even day to day. So might as well just wait the 4 weeks and see if it all goes away.

[Scass]

Are you on any medication at all? I bruise all the time but I also take steroids for asthma & bruising is a side effect.

I took my daughter to the gp a few months ago over something unrelated to bruising, but she had lots of bruises on her legs so the dr did a blood test as she said they routinely do one if a child has unknown bruising. It was fine, she was fine. It was summer, she’s a child who plays outside alot so they must have been from that.

[Munchlet]

Hi eminence,

So having gone through this a few times myself I thought I'd offer what I've discovered about bruising.

In my early twenties like you I discovered lots of bruises mainly on my legs and took myself off to the doctor. He basically giggled at me and looked at all my small yellowy/brown bruises about the size of small coins and said no, absolutely not concerning, they are on your legs and in areas that get easily knocked. If you came to me with big purple/black bruises the size of the bottom of a cup in areas where you shouldn't be bruising often like the trunk, back etc then I'd be concerned and that was it.

I've since been through this several times and all of a sudden notice an increase in bruising and for me I am very sensitive to foods and vitamins that can add to bruising, these are a few things that make me bruise easier, cinnamon, garlic, alcohol, vitamin d, a, e magnesium (very scary, also caused bleeding gums), cod liver oil, not to mention the usual ibruprofen and steroid nasal sprays.

I think if they are just small bruises and you don't have any other worrying symptoms, you are likely ok and just bruise easy but if you are worried just chat it through with your GP.

I've talked it through with a GP since on a couple of occasions and they've never been worried, they said I just bruise easy and my blood vessels are closer to the surface, plus I'm fair skinned, don't know if you are but everything is much more noticeable. They also say bruising on it's only is more likely to be vitamin deficiency or something innocent. It's when it comes with more worrying symptoms and bleeding in other areas they tend to be concerned.

Hope that helps a bit.

[eminence]

I feel broken. Today I found a purplish red spot around my knee with red dots around it, none of it blanches when pressed. There is also a new spot on the heel of my foot which appeared as pink in the morning and I've seen it slowly turn brown over the course of the day. My hip aches at all times too, even when I wake up. All of this makes me feel doomed and I regret that it's so close to christmas because I want a blood test right now. I know I am an anxious person and I know I obsess over symptoms but right now I can't imagine all of these things happening at once to just be a coincidence because I can't explain any of it.