When We Bruise Its The Under Lying Tissue Thats Bleeding
You would think that in the case of internal bruising, you would know you had done it. However, it’s not always immediately apparent and if left, it can be fatal.
If while at work or just out walking the dog you fall and hit your ribs hard, you will know that you have bruised or perhaps cracked a rib or too, what you don’t know is that you may have bruised the internal tissue or organs.
When we bruise it’s the under lying tissue that’s bleeding and the blood is what colours the skin from red to blue to green and yellow over the course of the bruise. You can hit your leg and the bruise can appear just below the bit that hurts because gravity is pulling the blood down away from the initial injury site.
Internal bleeding will show some bruising but it’s easy to mistake it for the bruise to the ribs or the abdomen where you actually got hit. Let’s say you hit you side really hard, you will have bruising to the skin and the muscle but if the impact was hard enough there could be bruising that goes deeper.
A kidney could take enough of the force to begin bleeding, this would be classed as internal bleeding or causing the kidney to hemorrhage. Although this would cause pain, a slow bleed may not be noticed at first therefore giving tie kidney to bleed and cause damage to the body which could make a bruised side suddenly very serious.
An impace hitting the body pushes all the tissues so hard that the capillaries break and that’s where the blood comes from. The nerve ending know that the tisseue is being put under pressure as the blood pushes its way into the tissues, expanding them more and so we feel pain.
Don’t worry too much though; the normal bruise that has not caused your internal organs to hemorrhage will be taken care of as soon as it happens. The body will release endothelin, a hormone that causes narrowing of the blood vessel to minimize bleeding.
As the endothelium is destroyed, the underlying von Willebrand factor is exposed and initiates coagulation. This creates a temporary clot to plug the wound and eventually leads to restoration of normal tissue.
Sever bruising can be dangerous because a clot can move. If a large clot makes its way to the heart or the brain death could be the outcome, this is usually only a risk with very sever bruising and when you have bruising that’s harsh enough to do this, you are usually in the hospital anyway.
Below is a table that gives a guide to how a bruise is defined. If you have a bruise that you think is above 3, consult a doctor and in the mean time, don’t fall over and bruise yourself in the first place.
Bruise harm score |
Harm score |
Severity level |
Notes |
0 |
Light bruise |
No damage |
1 |
Less than Moderate bruise |
Little damage |
2 |
Moderate bruise |
Some damage |
3 |
Serious bruise |
Dangerous |
4 |
Extremely serious bruise |
Dangerous |
5 |
Critical bruise |
Risk of death |
There is not a lot you can do for bruising. In most cases you can use a method called RICE.
This stands for
- Rest
- Ice
- Compression
- Elevation
It’s a method that’s used in all the sports, doctors and hospitals because the cold compress will reduce swelling and help with the pain. Keeping a bruise elevated will also help to reduce the bleed under the skin and all injuries need to rest so the the body can do its job.
Remember, prevention is always the better option so take care in all that you do and have fun but if you do injure yourself, call a doctor if it looks like it’s a bad one.
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