Pulled a muscle water skiing

[bocco]

Not sure if this belongs under active lifestyles or anti-coagulation. Bur anyway, two weeks ago Saturday I decided to try water skiing again for the first time since surgery 5 months ago. I learned to single ski in 1967 so this is not new to me. I've been hitting the gym a lot and felt pretty strong at this point. As the boat was pulling me out I felt some pain upper back right hand side around the arm pit. I got up but didn't ski very far and let go. The pain didn't feel to bad and I didn't worry to much about it. Got up Sunday morning to a huge bruise on my upper right back. by Monday this bruise had progressed halfway down the inside of my arm and halfway down the side of my body. Went to the doc and he said that's just what happens if you tear a muscle with coumadin and teh spreading was mostly just gravity. By the end of the week my arm and hand were swollen and the bruising and the bruising had progressed down my side to produce a pocket of blood just above my belt like a big poochy love handle on one side. 2 1/2 weeks later I still have some dark spots on my lower abdomen but everything else seems to be clearing up. What a mess just over a pulled muscle.

 

[SumoRunner]

Right. Many of us have been there at one time or another. Here's mine from 2008. Tore the calf just below the knee running a mile on the track. The discoloration went all the way down to the toes and lasted at least a month. The muscle took several months to heal fully.

http://home.roadrunner.com/~sumorunner/jpegs/foot2.jpg

 

[RunMartin]

I have just got back from a water activity holiday in Turkey. I did water skiing, windsurfing and dingy sailing (all at beginners level). I ended up with lots of big bruises caused by falling off and climbing back on the board/dingy. I am sure in the past I did not bruise so easily but I now take it as part of being active whilst on Warfarin. One thing though - I did wear a helmet for dingy sailing due to the beam swinging even though it was not compulsory by the instructor.

The other month I fell on loose rock whilst out in the hills. I badly bruised my hand and backside. Both had very large bruises which disappeared after a week.

 

[SumoRunner]

It's kind of funny that instead of wallowing in self-pity for having undergone valve replacement, we're all complaining about the bumps and bruises from playing too hard. I for one will just keep on playing despite a few black & blues.

 

[Debbrn]

I for one think it is wonderful. I feel like I have a new lease on life since my last PVR.

Debbie

 

[TheGymGuy]

I had some Graston Technique https://www.grastontechnique.com application to my triceps and biceps and usually I would bruise up a tiny bit from the contact, but on coumadin the bruises are fairly large and ugly, in addition simple A.R.T could leave small bruises now, where as before there would be nothing. On the positive end these sort of things release muscle and joint pain, help with overtraining and I do not mind for bruising so long as it does not stop my progress.

 

[Lynlw]

I'm sorry to here this, it sounds painful. Even tho usually there is nothing you can do except let it heal, its aways good to get it checked, since sometimes we've had members who needed treatment if it ends up something like comprtmental syndrome. I remeber on lady who almost ended up having surgery from pulling and abdomen doing p90x. I guess one thing to do is keep an eye on your INR, incase it helps to stay at the lower end while the bleeding is still spreading, or whatever your docs reccomend.

 

[bocco]

I actually had my INR check the day before. I was 2.6. Once I realized what the bruising was doing I actually backed off my dose by 25% for 3 days and then back on program. It didn't seem to make much difference. My INR test 3 weeks later was 2.3.

This gets me wondering if a big helping of greens or a couple of glasses of green tea right after a bruising incident might help or would it be to big a risk on the INR. It seems like one or two days at the low end of the range wouldn't be a disaster.

 

[SumoRunner]

This gets me wondering if a big helping of greens or a couple of glasses of green tea right after a bruising incident might help or would it be to big a risk on the INR. It seems like one or two days at the low end of the range wouldn't be a disaster.

Nah, the only INR that matters is at the time of the injury. The internal bleeding probably only lasted from a few minutes to a couple hours. Then you have all this blood oozing around loose under the skin. When the blood cells eventually die they turn purple and it takes the system several more days or weeks to clean out that material. The only danger is that you might do something stupid like, oh I dunno, race a mile on the track the next week and tear it again even worse.