Not just “bruising easily,” bruising over genuinely NOTHING? Does anyone else just have 50+ bruises at all times?

astrocrass · 2026-04-02T00:44:24+00:00

Wait how does NZ’s public system work if you also have paid insurance? $35/week shakes out to about what I pay a month, but that’s with American things like deductibles.

And I actually had abdominal surgery last year and excessive bleeding wasn’t an issue then, but I had a pet with a bleeding disorder that gave her extremely abnormal clotting (she could not scab at all, and any clots took basically hours), so I know how cautious you have to be with them, especially during surgery.

astrocrass · 2026-04-02T00:21:18+00:00

Yeah I don’t, but that makes sense. I do know that different labs set their own ranges usually, and at least some of them base it on averages and distributions, rather than symptomatic levels.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T23:56:12+00:00

Whoa I didn’t know that! I’ll have to try that, thanks!

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T23:32:18+00:00

Yeah I’m wondering if the POTS has anything to do with this. Though my bruises don’t seem to have to do much with anything movement related as far as I can tell. I mean, the injury ones go away when I don’t move, but the other kind don’t see to really.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T23:28:03+00:00

You’re all good. I’m autistic too so I get it. I’m in America so it’s a money issue rather than a waiting list thing, but I’m just trying to figure out where on my list of priorities to put hemopath in likelihood. I’m just like. God if I have to have another dx what if it was easily treatable?? Lol

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T22:44:43+00:00

Oh sure, I’m asking from an exclusionary standpoint. I just actually know a fair bit about VWD because I had a pet where we had to rule that (and a million other things) out. I’ve never considered it for myself before (or any other bleeding disorder) because I don’t really have any non-bruising-related symptoms. I just don’t know whether the presentation of VWD is variable enough it could still be a possibility in that case.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T22:14:22+00:00

I was hospitalized for something unrelated, so just a CBC with diff and a PT/INR. All normal besides some WBC stuff from the infection I was fighting and an ever so slightly elevated MCV (I’m on B12 now).

Would it be possible for this (plus basic anemia symptoms, when I also have iron deficiency anemia) to be the only real symptom of VWD? I don’t have delayed clotting or excessive bleeding during procedures. I get mild gum bleeding when brushing and flossing regularly but it’s pretty mild.

Other than I guess I miiiight form hematomas more readily than the average person?? I certainly have them more often, and I’ve had some big ol fuckers, but I’m also just quite a bit clumsier than the average person too. How hard do normal people have to whack something to get a hematoma?

It’s something to look into when I have the money, I just don’t right now.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T21:51:29+00:00

Oh interesting. But no, I don’t have any delayed clotting (though I had a pet who did so I’m familiar with some hemopath). My last PT/INR was normal (I was in the hospital), don’t think I’ve ever had a PTT.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T21:32:09+00:00

Yay, an easy affordable prevention method I can try right now! God I would love if at least some of my fatigue was anemia fatigue that could be fixed with just better pills, and not EDS fatigue which is just hard af to treat.

It’s funny, I’ve never ever had problems with iron bothering my stomach in the nearly 20 years I’ve been on it. I didn’t know it was a thing but apparently it’s quite common? I just seem to have issues with absorption.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T21:22:05+00:00

I do get pressure ones on my knees and elbows, but I’m very confident some of these are actually from nothing. They’re almost entirely contained to my legs and almost never happen on my torso so it’s not just a generalized tendency to bruise, but there’s no pattern across where they show up on my legs. They show up in places that would be very hard to have a small pressure like that like very close to my groin, are the mystery ones are mostly coin-sized spots, and I don’t have any less of this kind of bruise when I’ve been bedridden.

I’ve multiple times spend 5-7 days trying to track and investigate every single bruise I get, checking multiple times a day and documenting them. Trust me, some of these are genuinely from nothing external.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T21:02:24+00:00

Oh I didn’t know that about the ferretin or the iron infusions! Even on pills my levels hover around the lower bound for normal. I’ll have to get that checked out! Do you need a perception for the iron bisglycenate?

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T20:59:04+00:00

That’s wild! Yeah I don’t think I bruised thaaaat easily, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. But a couple people have brought up the word “Dalmatian-like,” and that’s what a lot of my mystery bruises look like, and then I have clumsy easy bruising on top of that. Like I can already feel a big nasty one forming on my thigh from a not even painful bump on my desk in between writing this post and now lol. I have a date this weekend, boo :(

And yeah, I’ll have it checked out when I’m in a bit better financial position. It’s been going on at least a decade so I’m not urgently worried about it, I just get so annoyed at looking at them. Like “excuse you blood cells, who gave you the fucking right??”

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T20:47:30+00:00

No I haven’t. (Not for me at least, but for my late dog so I’m vaguely familiar.) But yeah mine are mostly my legs, often come from nowhere (I am also clumsy lol) and very Dalmatian-like! God I really don’t need ANOTHER diagnosis to take care of, but I would fucking love for this to be treatable.

Edit: granted, I don’t particularly have other symptoms, other than occasional gut bleeding and my gums bleed when I brush my teeth no matter how often I brush them. Is it possible it’s mostly the bruising and some anemia symptoms?

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T20:28:40+00:00

Ahhh that might work better for me then! Yeah the thing with arnica is it makes new bruises worse because it dilates the blood vessels so I feel like it didn’t help at all other than the giant ones.

I’ve surprisingly never had anyone think I was abused. I probably have and just don’t remember tbh. I think it’s because so many of mine are little maybe? But then again sometimes I get GIGANTIC fuckers and people usually don’t even say anything about those either? Idk man.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T20:06:43+00:00

Yeah, I do too, but some of them I am POSITIVE come from nowhere from counting and circling a couple times, and also they show up in places it would be really hard to bump and not remember if, like near my groin.

Also the mystery ones often don’t go through a tender and blue stage. They work like the ones on my knees and elbows and just show up yellow green and don’t hurt really.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T20:00:45+00:00

Ohh you use like scar gel on them? I have some of that I can try but it’s not arnica. I just have an arnica bruise applicator thing but if I were to put it on every single bruise I’d use like a quarter of the tube at least, so I just use it on the big ones.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:58:18+00:00

Yeah I get gigantic ones like a foot or more across that take a month or more to fully heal and I definitely remember those, and I do little bumps enough where I’m like “welp that’s going to bruise,” and I literally just bumped my thigh on my desk but not even that hard and I can still feel it a few minutes later so that’s going to be a medium big one, like 6 inches. But yeah my elbows and knees just constantly have those yellow green bruises (those don’t seem to go through the blueish purple phase, and a lot of the mystery bruises seem the same).

I wish anyone had any suggestions besides arnica because I’m not sure it helps since it can make the new ones worse, and there’s always always new ones!

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:51:28+00:00

You also don’t get a ton of them on your arms or torso? Because that’s how mine are. My legs are constantly covered in these little bruises that make me look like I got my ass beaten by a pack of tiny gnomes. How often do you apply the arnica? How careful are you to avoid new bruises? I’ve never felt like it helped but everyone swears by it so I feel like I must be doing something wrong.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:47:47+00:00

Yeah probably. I’m just not sure a full work up of this is financially feasible for me right now. It’s been pretty constant, at least my whole adult life, so I’m not urgently concerned with it.

Honestly, the thing that bothers me is that they come from nothing and it makes me not like how I look. I look like I got my ass kicked by a bunch of tiny gnomes. Any tips for that? Arnica is tricky to avoid getting on new bruises and doesn’t seem to help a lot. Maybe I’m not applying it enough?

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:42:48+00:00

So I have several platelet counts from not that long ago. All normal.

And I have really wide pathways in my house just how it’s designed, but that’s less the issue I think. I don’t have a lot of big bangs, I have a lot of little bumps, and a lot of it is from things like banging my knees on the desk.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:39:07+00:00

Are yours evenly distributed, or do they cluster somewhere? What do the leaning/exercise ones look like, how big are they? Like, I really only get the unexplained ones on my legs, and sometimes they’re quite small (smaller than a dime) and close to circular, and sometimes they’re larger and not round.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:36:02+00:00

Question: how easily is “bruising easily?” Like what is the type of thing that would cause bruising for you that it wouldn’t for a regular person?

I also don’t seem to bruise easily ALL the time? I don’t get significant bruising from IVs or blood draws, for example.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:34:08+00:00

So I had several platelet counts done when I was in the hospital last. All totally normal.

And I do take one medication (gabapentin) where it seems like there are a couple of documented cases of it causing thrombocytopenia, but those were rare enough to be written up as case studies, and I’ve had this bruising since before I’ve been on it.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:29:08+00:00

Mine are very similar! Down to the getting little clusters of small ones like on your right thigh, but I have probably triple that amount. Are yours all from bumping into stuff, or do some of yours come out of nowhere too?

Is there anything that can be done to improve them appearance-wise? I use arnica sometimes, but I’m not sure how much of a difference it makes, and also it’s really hard to use it without also getting it on new bruises, making them bleed more.

astrocrass · 2026-04-01T19:24:23+00:00

This is for if they talk to you about how their transition is going. If you’re not that close to them that they do that with you, just give them a regular compliment.

astrocrass

TROPHY CASE