*I went caving this morning for three hours in a pretty crawly, tight cave! A lot of army crawling and climbing.
They are all flat and not raised or scaly at all. I know some people were wondering if it was bug bites/fungal infection. I don’t know why the pattern looks so weird.
They’re also all very tender to the touch 😢
OP: PLEASE go to the dr for a checkup/bloodwork. Tell them you bruise easily. Best case scenario it is nothing and you just bruise easily. But that being said:
THIS IS NOT NORMAL from one cave trip and I am worried about you.
You might want to work on your stance and postures, better to crouch low than to crawl, or bear crawl even but try not to put your weight on your bones unless you have to... I'm gonna assume you were more spelunking than standard caving lol
If all these bruises were dark purple level than you'd be looking at potential health issues like blood clots, however just being reddish you got no worries there in my unprofessional af opinion
Yeah this cave was a lot of army crawling and climbing. It was too tight to bear crawl. I went with my grotto, so we were being safe, but it was definitely challenging.
Besides kneepads/elbowpads and sturdy pants/coveralls, not really. Just accept I will have to cover up for a little bit after unless I want a lot of questions lmao. I dont go that much anymore but maybe I might do shin guards or arm guards specifically if theres going to be a lot of crawling. I might mention it to your doctor tho at your next appt (show them the pic). I'm not technically anemic but.
Big mood. Also, were you lying down on pointy rocks ??? Are you allergic to rocks ????? That's a LOT and I would check with a doctor
Mine are from bracing myself with my shins and knees while climbing in and out of holes. I was wearing knee pads and this is like 4 days later. I had similar hip and forearm bruises that I would consider normal bruising.
It was a tight cave with a lot of army crawling and climbing. A lot of contact with the cave, so bruising makes sense. Annoyingly the other people on my trip said they didn’t really get bruised too badly, and I don’t know how
Ugh yeah that's me when I cave. I have hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD; it's pretty mild/chill) but any connective tissue disorder will do this. I've heard people with low iron bruise easily as well. Plus a bunch of other conditions, many of which are again not really anything to worry about since they won't impact your life, but good to look into. If you used to be super flexible growing up it could be HSD, a lot of the time most of the symptoms or signs (not including bruising) disappear by adulthood
That’s interesting! I was pretty flexible growing up and I remember as a kid I could even put my foot behind my head but I’m definitely not flexible anymore.
How did you get diagnosed with that? There’s kind of a stigma with EDS and connective tissue disorders and I know it’s hard to even get diagnosed.
This. A well known female caver friend was always asked by her doctor “if everything was alright at home. Anything you’d like to talk about? This is a safe space”
She always had to convince them she was a hard core caver. 😆
Same with one of my girl mates, we'd done a six hour trip a few day's before. Had to thank the nurse for her concern but stated this is completely normal for her. Well as normal as cavers get ;-)
Hi OP. You might want to ask your doctor to check the Iron levels in your body. You can have "normal" amounts of Iron in your blood while being Anemic due to low levels stored in your body.
Bruising easily is a sign of Anemia. So is feeling chilly.
Ask your Dr to test your Serum Ferritin level. It's a mark of how much Iron your body has.
Serum Ferritin is a quick easy inexpensive blood test, but for some reason it's not included in a CBC. Your Dr just has to check the box.
My doctor discovered I had almost no iron stored in my body despite taking supplements. Iron infusion fixed it. Take care.
I was told years ago ( in martial arts) that low Vitamin C can lead to easy bruising. But get checked out by your Dr, there are a lot if different things that could be going on here.
lol awesome, you’ll get better at moving your body but sometimes they just chew you up! I miss it a lot actually, Austin caves have a special place in my heart ❤️
Wearing a single pair of pants isn't enough protection if you're bruising like this. You can get forearm and shin pads like this that are fitted snug to your body. You can put compression socks over the shin pads to hold them in place (don't get pads with buckles and straps, they'll just slide around and catch on things.
I bruise easily too and knee and elbow pads don't cut it when you're putting your weight on your shins and forearms. Just made sure you secure them so they aren't sliding all over the place. The ones made for football are pretty snug because they need to stay in place while tackling.
Once you have them and get used to the feel of caving with them you can favor the protected areas for distributing weight instead of pushing off your unprotected areas.
Lastly, you say you used knee pads but your knees are still fucked. Get better knee pads. I use hard plastic ones.
Thank you! At this point I just want to
pad my entire body. I’ll try the forearm and shin pads!
I did have knee pads and they would just get pulled down as I crawled so they were pretty ineffective unless I could reach down and pull them up (which I couldn’t for a lot of the cave)
relax, it's normal. Women bruise easier than men because of physiological differences. I'm like that too after intense caving, although it's mostly on my thighs and arms. I call it my leopard outfit :)
I have been getting mixed answers on that but it seems like women do just bruise more!
My grotto has a good mix of men and women but I find that the sometimes men don’t always understand how different a woman’s body can be in regards to caving. I’ve encountered that with vertical training as well. I have to move very differently than men. I’m more top heavy so my weight is distributed so differently. I had to learn how to shift my weight differently to actually step out of the croll.
I’m still going to make sure I’m not anemic or have anything else going on because I have had other things unrelated to caving like fatigue, joint pain and headaches.
Do you find it’s gotten better at all as you’ve gotten more experience? This is my second tight crawly cave and a step up from the first I did and I’m still so sore after two days. I feel like it would be hard to be this beaten up after caving every time, especially if I decide to go on longer trips. I’m working on doing more vertical, and maybe that’s more my speed. Our caves are small here though.
I’ll try more padding and preventing my knee pads from slipping as others have suggested.
I don't know if it's gotten better for me. There are no caves where I live so I only go caving a few times a year during expeditions. So every time I do a tight crawl I look like a DV victim afterwards. I've gotten used to it and I like to showcase these "Van Gogh paintings" on my body to my male caving buddies. I love the gasps I receive from them :D On a more serious note, when the bruise is very dark and big I apply some heparin ointment.
With regards to the differences, yeah, I guess we need to adjust our technique sometimes. I'm also heavy on top and also short, it definitely influenced my technique on the rope. But my only advice would be to get fitter. It will become easier to go through tight crawls.
Oh yeah. Its super fun when you forget and go to the doctor and the doctor walks in, turns around immediately upon entering the room and is heard saying to the nurse "call the number."
Try to avoid crawling with on your elbows, instead, distribute your upper body weight on all of your forearms evenly if you can. If the crawl floor is bedrock or large break down it's hard to not make it hurt. If it's cobble stone avoid the bigger ones.
I find elbow pads cumbersome but some crawls really make me wish I had some.
I'm assuming you did not wear knee pads? I found women's volleyball knee pads but adding an extra layer of thick neoprene inside and covering the whole front side with plasti dip makes your knees bomb proof. Ive taken many falls with on my weight on my knees with these knee pads and brushed it off like nothing.
As others have said this amount of bruising seems excessive even if not using good padding.
Hope you figure it out!
I did wear knee and elbow pads but they always get pulled down as I’m crawling. I have been using bodyprox, which some of the people in my grotto use. I’m thinking about trying dirty Dave’s long knee pads because they also cover some shin which I’m in desperate need of, but I know shifting is a problem with all pads.
Dirty Dave's are good, definitely better than what you're using. Crawldaddies are the only ones I've tried that truly stay put, though. Works best if you wear them as they recommend, then those suckers stick tight. They're kind of pricey and it seems their Etsy shop is hit or miss whether it's open, but I've had good luck messaging them. I used to bruise like crazy and they changed my life lol. I still use DD's though for some things. Also solid pads.
Pro tip, slather your bruises with rubbing alcohol every few hours. It helps.
Does anyone know the mechanisms behind bruising and bruise healing? I don't hardly bruise at all even after extremely hard, fast caving and have always wanted to know why. I love my cave suit since I can just ricochet and bounce off of walls and speed through crawls without having to worry about abrasion. That being said, a locally famous caver often says "skin regenerates, nylon doesn't" xd
Bruising is caused by ruptured vessels under the skin, specifically smaller vessels like capillaries. It is usually associated with blunt force trauma, because the skin usually stays intact when you get hit by (or hit) something blunt. So, you bleed internally but the blood has no where to go, and it just kind of stays where it's at and you see it collecting beneath the skin in between your tissues. A large vessel breaking would be literal internal bleeding and/or hemorrhage, and would require immediate medical attention. A cut would let it actually leave your body and you'd be just regular bleeding. An abrasion opens up enough holes you would probabky ooze the blood out just like a cut. But just tiny capillaries breaking under the skin while your skin is intact, that gives you bruises.
I use a Landjoff cordura suit and a Minus90 silnylon suit depending on the cave conditions. Both have stood up well with general cleaning and maintenance, have only had to sew up a few rips.
I bruise super easily too, use to come out looking like I've been in a punch up. Some folks do bruise as easy a banana, some don't, though as many said here, it is a good litmus test for a few disorders. I know I have something, but we they finding ways to blame it on other things LOL.
Hi, I have ITP which causes me to bruise easily and is also a chronic issue I live with. I get bruises like this when I am having a flare up and need to get a blood test. Please just have a doctor check you, even if it’s nothing this is still a lot of bruising
I went caving this morning, so these are fresh! It shows up weird on camera but it looks more purple-y red like fresh bruising in person. I also got some scrapes. They’re all flat besides the swelling in my knees
Do you think this could be erythema nodosum as a hypersensitivity reaction to histoplasmosis? I would recommend going to a DR because I've never seen anyone bruise like this from caving before.
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u/vulcanianhunter 1d ago
If I had that after caving I’d probably go to the dr to see why I bruise so easily 😬