So, weather has been up and down here in SE Wisconsin lately. Yesterday, sun melted snow, which hit the ground and quickly froze again. Walking out of my house late afternoon and down the front porch steps, I hit said ice and, in gloriously animated fashion, took a nasty fall down the stairs.
Landed near my tailbone. Actually, I have a bruise and quite a divot on my upper left cheek, just below the kidney. Yeah, I know, “pictures or it didn’t happen,” but, trust me, you don’t want to see my butt.
I think it is just a deep tissue bruise. Very sore to the touch. Very rough night sleeping. But, just a little tenderness when twisting/bending, so, does not seem to be that serious.
Question is: how do you treat it? I put ice on immediately, later used a heating pad, then ice again. What is the best way to treat a deep tissue bruise injury?
For an acute injury - I tell people to ice for 3-4 days then switch to heat. My reasoning is to limit inflammation early on - then use heat to increase blood flow so the blood/hematoma/brusing gets resorbed back into your system a bit faster plus I think heat is a better muscle relaxer. I have never seen any good science supporting anything but heat early on seems bad from talking to people who hit the jacuzzi early…I’ve seen every combo recommended so I doubt it matters much and I doubt anybody really knows the answer.
In it’s entirety, it spread up across my lower back, and down to the top of the other glute, as well. The worst of it was on that side though–I bruised the glute pretty solidly, and developed a knot/lump in the muscle that is still there 8 months later.
I iced for the first few days, sat on a pillow, took lots of advil, and then kept the muscle warm and loose after that. I had to take a couple of weeks off of running–even walking was painful (and let’s not talk about sitting). After I resumed, I used a wrap and compression shorts while running for another two months or so to keep the area from jostling too much.
Crashed at the Velodrome. I also had an arm full of road rash and splinters, and pretty much the front of that leg was also brusie/splinters/and road rash. The scar on my forearm is rather nice.
It was an interesting adventure, to say the least. I once wondered, “Gee, how bad can it be, crashing on wood instead of concrete or a packed dirt trail?” I know now, and will not ask that question again.
