Tell Me How I Can Prevent Bruising Easily Altogether

By Jan Doan

When capillaries break and blood accumulates under your skin you get a bruise (also known as a contusion). You can bruise your bones, your muscle or your skin. The skin bruise is the least painful. The bone bruise and muscle bruise tend to be the most painful and disrupting to your everyday life. You can prevent bruising easily altogether by observing safety rules.

Most of the time bruising is caused by injury. You can run into a counter, get hit during a sports game, when you are doing home repairs and fall off the ladder or by simply tripping. To prevent bruising in your day-to-day life, take the proper precautions for the activity you are doing. In sports, wear protective equipment, such as a helmet, knee pads or elbow pads. Wear your seat belt when driving or riding in a car. Watch where you are walking to avoid tripping and be careful on icy patches during the winter.

There are those of us who seem to find bruises appearing out of nowhere. How come this happens? How can you prevent bruising easily altogether? Bruising risk increases if you are a smoker. It also increases when you are overweight, have anemia, leukemia or a bleeding disorder like hemophilia.

Certain medications also make people more prone to bruising. If you are taking a blood-thinning medication, such as Coumadin, anti-histamines, penicillin, anti-depressants or cortisone this could be your answer as to why you are bruising so easily. Talk to your doctor. He or she can change your medication if bruising is intolerable. Other causes of easy bruising include getting older, being deficient in B12, folic acid, and, very rarely, being deficient in vitamin K.

You just cannot stop bruising completely. Sometimes people are just plane klutzy. Sometimes life just happens. There are things you can do to minimize your risk of bruising.

First and foremost is to stop smoking. Next, get your weight down to a healthy level. Switch over-the-counter pain relief medications from aspirin, ibuprofen and other NSAIDs to Tylenol. NSAIDs and aspirin thin your blood.

Very few people in the developed world have vitamin K deficiency unless there is some underlying medical issue. To give your vitamin K level an extra boost eat your vegetables, especially dark, leafy vegetables, broccoli, seaweed, kelp and alfalfa. You can purchase alfalfa or kelp tablets cheaply at your local health food store. In addition, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and other types of berries, as well as citrus fruits, are high in bioflavinoids (anti-oxidants). Bioflavinoids will strength connective tissue. Increase your intake of lipoic acid by eating yams or carrots. Levels of zinc will remain healthy by consuming soy products and wheat germ. Taking a multivitamin daily is also worth consideration.

If you do get bruised despite all of your efforts at protection, applying Arnica cream to the bruise or taking a homeopathic or herbal Arnica tablet may help speed healing and reduce pain. One thing you never want to do to a bruise is try and drain it using a needle. This will only make it more painful and more bruised looking.

So, as you can see, you cannot really prevent bruising easily altogether. But, there are definitely some things you can do to strengthen your body's defenses and to minimize your chances of getting bruised. If your bruise does not heal, hurts badly or you find that you are spontaneously bruising, make an appointment with your doctor. - 17268

About the Author:

Do you find yourself bruising easily? There are many ways you can prevent bruising. On the Internet, you can find many different Bruise Remedies that will help you out.