The I-Don't-Bruise Thread

[farmerjumperdon]

OK, covered this before in some other theread, and there were some plausible possible explanations, but it still amazes me.

Twice this past week I nailed myself plenty hard - and no bruise.

1 - On vacation, in an unfamiliar bathroom. Kids are in the tub, I crouch down to place the bathmat and BOOM! Forehead meets top edge of tub squarely. Stunning but no loss of conciousness, . . . and no bruise.

2 - Back home, putting some stakes on the side of a haywagon. One would not go in the bracket. Simple enough, just apply more force, right? Maybe right if the correct tool is used in the correct manner. But I am in a hurry, so I grab the nearest heavy tool, a 3' iron prybar. I take a full force jab at the uncooperative stake, miss it, and jam it directly into my shin. Criminy did that smart. Nasty gouge, a good bit of blood (I actually got to see it spatter from the impact - a first) but, . . . no bruise.

I wonder how hard I would have to hit myself in order to bruise. Stay tuned.

p.s. - previous no-bruise encounters include getting hit in the head hard enough to be knocked out, getting hit hard enough in the shoulder to break the collarbone, various breaks and sprains, etc.

[Moose]

You need blood in order to bruise. Could you be a robot or some form of undead?

[Fazor]

Haha!
Well, I know some people bruise worse than others. Me and my friend have "the punching game" we play when we're drunk. Basically, we each pick a playing card and the one with the highest card gets to punch the one with the lowest card in the arm. I garuntee he hits harder than me (6'1" firefighter v 5'6" insurance salesman) but the next day he's bruised worse than a...[insert similie for very bad bruisable thing here, my mind is failing at the moment]...and I barely have a mark. I DO bruise, just not very much.

(P.S. Kids, don't try above game at home ((or if you do, don't do it because of me. it's admittadly a stupid game and can be dangerous so here's your standard warning))

and P.P.S.
Farmer, it seems every couple weeks we get a new self-inflicted injury update from you. Perhapse it's time to make pads and a helmet part of your every day wardrobe? attire? (edited: jeeze i can't pick my words today. well, even worse than I usually can) :)

[Trebuchet]

I guess I don't qualify for this thread. I'm constantly discovering bruises on my arms and legs and have no idea how I got them.

[sarongsong]

"I bruise easily, but I heal fast!"
---mantra of an incurable college heartbreakee...til she got married http://bautforum.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Gillianren]

I guess I don't qualify for this thread. I'm constantly discovering bruises on my arms and legs and have no idea how I got them.

Me, too. We call them "mystery bruises." Which are better than "mystery cuts," though we just assume those are the cat's fault.

[LurchGS]

and P.P.S.
Farmer, it seems every couple weeks we get a new self-inflicted injury update from you. Perhapse it's time to make pads and a helmet part of your every day wardrobe? attire? (edited: jeeze i can't pick my words today. well, even worse than I usually can) :)

No - your first choice seems to me to be *exactly* right - wardrobe = protective clothing.

I'm not sure, but I don't think the head bruises too much. I have seen knots thicker than my hand on the heads of people, but no bruise arises. (on MY head too, a few times aboard ship. Tall people and short steel doorways should not be compelled to mix)

I, too, am a "Bruise? What bruise?" person. I've HAD bruises.. I think. Broken bones, experienced the joys of road rash, did terrible bendy things to my car with a tree..

If I were to offer a guess - and I am - I'd surmise it has something to do with the way blood vessels respond in an individual. Since a bruise is nothing more than blood pooling under the skin, those of us who don't bruise probably don't have fragile blood vessels.

Come to think of it, I wonder if we have lower blood pressure? I know mine is higher than I want it, but my heart rate at rest is still below 65.

[Jens]

Also, some of it must be about how thick your skin is (in the literal sense). When blood vessels burst, the pooled blood can only be seen if it's close enough to the surface. People get brain hemorrhages, but you don't see anything because the skull is in the way, right? So some of it would depend on how far from the surface your blood vessels are. I suspect there is a bit of variation.

[Ronald Brak]

If you are dark coloured or purple, it might be hard to notice bruises.

[Tog_]

... but the next day he's bruised worse than a...[insert similie for very bad bruisable thing here, my mind is failing at the moment]...

Over-ripe peach in a cement mixer?
Hemophiliac on a rugby squad?

I think I've mentioned this before as well, but I don't bruise often. I've also had my share of head injuries, but only one may have resulted on a loss of consciousness. I used to bruise a lot, and very easily. Then, at about age 12 (7th grade), I ended up sitting in front of a big kid that had a real need to show he was big. He used to hit me in the shoulders constantly. After about 4 months, I stopped bruising. I did get one when I crashed on a three wheeler and used the inside of my knee to cushion its impact on the ground, but that was about the size of a quarter.

Later, When I started getting into the martial arts thing I got a lot of bruises on my shins from being on one side or the other of a roundhouse (turning) kick/shin block connection. I didn't wear pads unless I had something I needed to let heal. I had a friend that wore the hard soccer style shin guards and there were a few times that my unpadded shin made it through the plastic to give him a nice bruise.

Of the 14 times my nose has broken, about 5 or 6 should have resulted in a bruise, but none did. Of my 7 main head injuries, one broke the skin but even that didn't bleed much. (Bed post) Two had every right to have been fatal given my age and the impact site. (Bannister, swing) Three others should have knocked me out (baseball, bat, table) and one may have. It was a car wreck when I was 5. I was asleep at the time it happened and I don't recall getting out of the car. We lost the brakes on the little truck at the top of a freeway off ramp. My dad could either make a left across traffic and go up the hill, or turn right and go down...way down. He opted for the left. As it turned out, there was a base to a road sign sticking up out of the ground about front axle high. It stopped us dead. No one had seatbelts on.

One of the things done in most real martial arts training, not tournament schools, or that aerobics stuff is conditioning. This is where the student hits trees and walls and gets hit with sticks and stuff to gradually build up a resistance to the stresses of impact. Any form of constant physical activity would probably do the same thing. Construction workers probably don't even notice most of the day to day bumps and scrapes that someone like the stereotypical IT guy might need to fill out a medical claim for.

Farmer, do you recall if you bruised more before the Jumper bit was added to your lifestyle?

[Jens]

I don't know if this is the same issue, but I played guitar for a long time when I was younger, and went through a kind of process. When I first started playing, my fingers would hurt a lot. And then after a while, I built up calluses on my fingers and it stopped hurting. But then, after a bunch of years, the calluses went away, and my fingers got soft again, but it still didn't hurt. I don't really understand the process, but I assume this is something that happens to guitar players?

[farmerjumperdon]

No - your first choice seems to me to be *exactly* right - wardrobe = protective clothing.

Come to think of it, I wonder if we have lower blood pressure? I know mine is higher than I want it, but my heart rate at rest is still below 65.

I'm typically high 130's over upper 70's. Resting pulse from upper 40's to mid 50's.

I admit to being a klutz, but not overall. It usually happens doing simple stuff. When performing high-risk activities I am extremely focused (climbing, skydiving, driving, explosives, etc.).

I've thought about the body armor stuff. Until I got into jumping I was not aware of how widely it is used by certain athletes; other than the obvious stuff like NHL and NFL. But I do not base jump or do swoop landings or any of that kind of thing, so I have not bothered. Might get some for gardening though.

[farmerjumperdon]

Hemophiliac on a rugby squad?

Used to play, like that line.

But nope, never was a bruisee, as far back as I remember anyway. I never really thought about it until after an accident where I got plowed by a pickup while on my motorcycle; age 17. I took some big hits and had no marks. That's when I started noticing. Thinking back on it, I tripped over a trailer hitch bar when I was playing hide and seek, about age 9. That's the earliest hard impact I can clearly remember. On a dead run I ran smack into it with my shin. It took all the flesh up off the bone, just like fileting a fish, over about a 4" patch. It was scrunched up like an accordion. I pulled it back down and hobbled into the house. Got a permanent notch in my shin from that one, . . . but no bruise.

[Roy Batty]

Farmerjumperdon, I think you should pitch yourself as a sequel (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0217869/) to Shyamalan... Unbruisable :D

[Ronald Brak]

I think we may have to discount impacts where the skin is broken as that can let the blood drain out. Of course it is perfectly possible to be simultaneously cut and bruised in the same area but for solid evidence that you are resistant to bruising you might have to look at solid impacts that don't break the skin.

[mickal555]

I used to get bruises, can't remember the last time I had one though...

One thing I don't get is broken bones, I've been in some pretty bad injury things, but never broken anything, I almost broke my neck though. (sorta dislocated it, I jumped off a playground when I was in grade 4 to see what would hapen if I didn't bend my knee's when landing; bad stuff)

[LurchGS]

lol - my youngest sister fell down the middle of one of those monkeybar things - landed face-first on <gasp> asphalt. whole face swelled up, and there were the prettiest colors..

I tried that 'don't bend the knees' thing too. You can tell. If I hadn't, I'd be 7'6" and my knees wouldn't look like Torgo's.

Broken bones - for 15 years or so, the only one I had was a crushed knuckle on my left hand (caught in the hinge of a fire door in 7th grade). Then I started playing soccer and softball... Whenever my Doc wants a roadmap of DC, he xrays my ankles.

Fortunately, it was always one ankle at a time.

[Tog_]

lI tried that 'don't bend the knees' thing too. You can tell. If I hadn't, I'd be 7'6" and my knees wouldn't look like Torgo's.

Heh, he GF and I still quote bits of the MST3K version of that from time to time.

I had a chance to blow out my knees, but I lucked out, I think. I'm still not sure exactly why this worked. I was standing on the top of one of those Coke/hot dog trailer things they use to sell stuff at furniture sales on summer holidays. I had to put up the plastic to cover the paper products in a parking lot sale before the rain hit. I was leaning over the edge, into a stiff wind, to find a way to get down now that I'd covers all my hand and foot holds. I didn't realize that my center of mass was over the edge of the trailer until the wind just stopped. I fell over and in the 9 feet or so decided that the best thing to do would be to bend my knees until right before I hit, then kick out hard and tuck into a forward roll. It worked perfectly. The roll went so well I didn't even get dirty as I rolled across the parking lot. Later I tried the same thing from about 12 feet. This time the landing was on the concreter floor in the back room of the store. Again, nothing hurt. The part I don't get after thinking about it is why the act of kicking out at the ground at the moment of impact would make it hurt less, then just dropping straight down and bending at the knees. It makes your feet sting.

What I finally decided on was that the force when I drop and stick goes straight down, whereas the force when I kick off, is directed in a small radius curve to move almost laterally. I have no idea if that's correct, and it still doesn't explain why the stress on my knees isn't increased enough for me to feel it. Maybe someone with some experience in falling the right way can provide some insight... hint hint.;)

[Moose]

Oof, yes, I tried that once. I was actually kind of methodical about it. I knew better not to try it jumping off of something. Instead (for a first trial) I used my ankles and toes to jump up a few inches off the ground, maybe four, then let myself drop onto my heels with my knees locked.

It was jarring and painful enough, surprisingly so, that I decided to forgo a second experiment. (Not with me as the lab rat, anyway.) Hooray for science.

[LurchGS]

Moose Nye, the Science Guy!

[JohnD]

This is a form of solipsism - I am special, but in a secret way - that can have two outcomes.
First, Superman and all his ilk.
Second, paranoia - I am special, and am persecuted for it.

Watch out, Farmer.

John

[mugaliens]

(P.S. Kids, don't try above game at home ((or if you do, don't do it because of me. it's admittadly a stupid game and can be dangerous so here's your standard warning))

Thanks for that, Fazor... At least it made me laugh!

I rarely bruise and have been in some serious accidents without broken bones. Don't know why.

Ever see the movie Unbreakable, with Bruce Willis? Well, I'm not, but given some of the things I've lived through without a scratch, some of my friends think I am. Besides, I can lift the back end of most small cars.

But I can only bench press like 160 pounds?

Go figure. Probably because I ride my bicycle like a banshee.

[Number138]

I think we may have to discount impacts where the skin is broken as that can let the blood drain out. Of course it is perfectly possible to be simultaneously cut and bruised in the same area but for solid evidence that you are resistant to bruising you might have to look at solid impacts that don't break the skin.


About a month ago a 400 lb crate pinned me to the ground. Don't ask, I'm prone to this kinda s**t. Anyhow. I couldn't walk on my leg for weeks. My left thigh was twice as big as my right due to the swell. The doc checked me out, everything cool, just a contusion. Yet, no discoloration.

I should add that I broke my jaw a year ago, no blood loss, No bruise.:think:

[Hydro]

I bruise very easily. I have a very light skin tone. A tan is out of the question (unless all my freckles run together ;) ) and I am very thin skinned. Any little nick or cut will result in blood. My thumb will show a bruise if I merely pick up a hammer.

That being said, I've have violent collisions many times with many different objects, I've played baseball/softball my entire life, and seem to have a daredevil streak in me that has never resulted in a broken bone. I think I may have cracked a rib after falling off a roof (don't ask, ha), but the worst noticeable injury I've had to date was a dislocated finger in HS football.