Hematomas?

[smurfalicious]

Sooo today I was probably doomed to eat it, and I had a premonition that everything was gonna go wrong, and it did, but yeah I rode anyway. So much went wrong, but the worst of it was coming home, having fun on the nice freshly rained on trails when I saw this wicked little berm. So I grinned, hit it, lofted my front end and flew. Boy did I get some air! So much so that while I was in the air, all I could think was "I'm gonna crash." Well I must have come off the berm crooked because I landed in some soft dirt off the trail, and with the speed and momentum I had, by the time I regained control, it was too late to miss the tree and tree stump on either side of the trail.

As I laid on the ground, fighting my right pedal for my foot back, I looked at my flight path and yeah, I was doomed. Then I started assessing damage. Bloodied my elbow, bruised up my calve tangling with my bike, okay nothing too bad. Got back to the car, holy crap, that bruise swelled. Got to Walgreens for an ice pack, nice Walgreens lady says it's a hematoma. Yeah, she's right.

Now I've known horses to get these, and sometimes, more often than not they end up being drained by the vet. What about people? I've been icing it, but it kills when I stand up. It's on my leg though, so I'm guessing it will drain better than a horses hip or something, right? But in the mean time besides arnica and ice, what should I do?

Argh, I love crashing, strangely enough, but the consequences sometimes suck!

love and cookies
-smurf

[Bike2Work4Me]

Sorry to hear about your crash. Hope you heal quickly. I went over the handlebars last October and caught the stem right on the inside of my thigh. I ended up with a grapefruit-sized hematoma that took a loooooooong time to go away. When I went to the doctor she said it was just a matter of waiting, icing, and taking pain killers. It eventually went down. I still have a hard spot and it's discolored. She also suggested that, after the first couple of days of ice, that I use a heat pack to help break up the clotting. Those new air activated stick-on heat packs for your back worked great at night and didn't move around. Take care.

[Irulan]

Me, three, had one of those. Ice, and a compression wrap, and don't stress it for a while. Mine was a very deep bruise in the quadricep. It actually went into spasm one day and I thought my hip was going to tear away from my thigh. I couldn't sleep on it at all.

Do you know how to do ice massage? It is the most effective way to ice these kind of injuries. You fill up paper cups with water and freeze them. Then tear the rim away from the cup so you have a little round ice block tohold onto. Gently massage the area with ice, no hdavy pressure. Normally the time is 20 minutes but for quads or other areas in deep muscle it's 30 minutes, 4 x a day. This should really help a lot. The compression wrap helps with the drainage. Do not stretch,massage or otherwise manipulate the muscle for a while.

If you are getting medical advice, be sure it's from a sports physician or someone who works with atheletes. I was told that heat was NOT a good idea... my trainer is the head trainer for our community college system and I usually listen to her advice.

this site here, while rather medical, is an excellent source of sports injury information:
The Physician and Sports Medicine (http://www.physsportsmed.com/index.html)

One thing I learned that's interesting, now don't 'get scared, is that with really deep contusions, ( I mean REALLY deep) if they aren't treated properly, the tissue can actually calcify as it heals, at a cellular level, which is permanent. This is a worst case scenario tho. You can read about it if you look up contusions at the site listed above.

Irulan

[kimba]

Me four...

I got a whopper of a contusion on my thigh from hitting the handlebars when I had my epic endo.
Thay was when...end of May? It was like a softball on my upper thigh. Now it's like a half a softball.

The doctor told me I needn't worry about the calcification, which is good. But she wouldn't drain it either... explaining it's kind of like a lasagna... the fluid is trapped between successive layers of muscle, fat etc...in my case lotso fat!

It doesn't hurt anymore, and I FINALLY have feeling back..there was no feeling in that area for a long time.

Unfortunately, and I know you don't want to hear this- it'll be the
around for the long haul....

I used a combination of heat, ice and arnica gel, which helped with the surrounding bruises...the contusion itself never bruised. Weird huh?

But yeah- I still have it and it's been uh....(calculates on fingers....)
at least 3 months.

Kimba

[Irulan]

Originally posted by kimba
Me four...

I got a whopper of a contusion on my thigh from hitting the handlebars when I had my epic endo.
Thay was when...end of May? It was like a softball on my upper thigh. Now it's like a half a softball.

Kimba

wow, I remember that, it was a doozy, It's only been 3 weeks for me and it's almost all gone.

Mine was the handlebars too...
I get slammed up against the handlebars, don't clip out, front wheel turns and pins leg to top tube, and the whole thing goes a*s over teakettle upside down into the bushes...! So I lay there, taking inventory, my pals are
alternately giggling and asking if I'm OK. If you've ever done one of these you feel like a pretzel and it takes a whle to figure out how to "un-do".

heh heh.

Irulan

[smurfalicious]

Thanks ladies, I think I'll keep up with the cold therapy and arnica, maybe the ice massage after it starts to hurt a little less. Mine is from a tangle with the top tube, second time I've wrassled with it. Last time it just bruised the right leg.

Oh well, this can't be half as bad as two summers ago when I worked on a dude ranch. Out of nowhere one of the string horses booted me at full blast in the thigh. It nearly knocked me over and I swear I heard a cracking sound. Stubborn sucker I am worked the rest of the day, even finished the ride I just started and could easily have gotten someone to take over. Ugh, to this day I still have a little bit of an indentation in my thigh!!!

love and cookies
-smurf

[Irulan]

ice massage starting now will make it hurt a lot less, will you trust me on this one? Get out some towels, plop in front of the tube (womens' olympic triathlon at the moment) and jsut do it. The sooner you can decrease the swelling, the sooner you'll start healing


( yes, mom...)

Irulan

[smurfalicious]

Alright, alright! I'll pick up some little cups at Wal-Mart today. Lords knows I need to go there anyway. Ha, my roommate stating we needed light bulbs was his way of saying *I* need to go buy them. Guys, bah!

So I think I'm gonna lay low today despite my complete desire not to. I don't really have clothing for this sudden cool, wet weather we have here, and though I love riding Pony, PJ my real "pony" sounds like an excellent way to spend my day. Think I'm gonna shoot for some late, late season showing with him. It's been a long summer!

And I guess it wouldn't kill me to clean the house, or go mow my mom's lawn one last time while she's in Hawaii. *mope*

love and cookies
-smurf
aka boo boo

[kimba]

Ahemmm...
I'll show you mine if....

I dunno if I shared this with you guys when it happened- but here's my hematoma.

It sure is...
uh, colourful.

And still half that size, though the bruising is gone...

I hope the picture file isn't too big....I'm still new to this...
Kimba:eek: