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BallardRex t1_irb3z6t wrote

The short answer is that a number of cells are recruited to “eat” and otherwise break down the debris, especially the erythrocytes, which are ultimately either recycled in part or excreted as waste after processing in the liver/spleen. In particular the “eating” is carried out by leukocytes which are recruited to the area via the inflammatory process. Depending on severity and location of the bruise there might be some residual staining from the liberated iron, but that will usually also fade with time in a healthy person.

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MourkaCat t1_irbgx51 wrote

Is the staining what makes bruises look brown/yellow/green as it heals?

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Helmut_Vonscapin t1_irbqjmo wrote

Bilirubin is a brown/yellow compound produced by the degradation of hemoglobin. Various concentrations lead to various fading colours

Edit : see the answer of SadandFurious, it is much better

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Nomicakes t1_irby70t wrote

Unusual but related question, would a regularly-high Bilirubin count (showing in a blood test) cause bruises to fade slower?

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Not_Keurig t1_irco07v wrote

Clinical scientist here, I analyze bilirubin (and other things) in blood.

An abnormally high bilirubin makes people look yellow, or "jaundiced." Also, high concentrations make your blood plasma (the liquid part of your blood) look much darker than normal. (Most plasma is light yellow, similar to urine). But a high bilirubin plasma will be dark yellow to green to black! And it stains the glass test tubes with its color. Interesting and not really something I knew till I started my career. Thought I could share

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Kiavu t1_irdxg15 wrote

if anyone is curious, people who have abnormally high bilirubin generally have a condition called Gilbert's Syndrome.

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erwinscat t1_irdzmik wrote

>Gilbert's Syndrome

Which is mostly harmless/asymptomatic (and very common), apart from intermittent jaundice and some possible links to fatigue and other diffuse symptoms.

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Monguce t1_irepv3x wrote

It might be more accurate to say that people who have Gilbert's are often jaundiced.

There are loads of causes of juandice. Some of them are really bad news.

It can be pre hepatic (like haemolysis), intra hepatic (like Gilbert's) or post hepatic (like gall stones).

Other things that you'd have to consider would include drug reactions, pregnancy, biliary obstruction, autoimmune causes (haemolysis, hepatitis...) Other causes of hepatitis (viral, anaesthetics, alcoholic...), I forget the rest of the list. It's not hard to find out you want to know the other causes.

The most likely causes are also different at different ages.

Gilbert's is one of many.

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Kiavu t1_irgreo4 wrote

Absolutely, all it takes is a blood test to diagnose. I have gilbert's, but had no idea until a doctor noted it during a blood test for something else. I had always wondered why sometimes by eyeballs were yellow like I had cancer, or my skin got yellower sometimes.

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Beautiful-Ice7622 t1_ird75ir wrote

Is it possible that the black samples are coming from people who have tattoos? I know in the heavily tatted cadavers, the lymphatic fluid is grey/black. The ink gets stuck and circulates. Idk anything about the color patterns of bilirubin but it would be really freaking interesting if that were why your samples were black.

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Not_Keurig t1_irde1kr wrote

That's a really interesting thought! But it's not the same reason. Lymph would obviously be more affected by tatoo ink, as macrophages engulf the metal in the tattoo ink, and then return to the lymph.

Really interesting to learn that about lymph. very much appreciate the additional info, but no, the high bilirubin making plasma look dark yellow, greenish or kinda black (called "icteric") is only from bilirubin.

Also it's not really black, just a very very dark greenish yellow.

Additionally, some medications can make the plasma look kind of green.

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dnick t1_ireqa7x wrote

The lymphatic system is over of the least talked about complete systems in the body. It's like those illustrations of the circulatory systems and the nervous systems and then years later biology teachers are like 'oh, yeah, there's another one too' and then right back to floating over it.

Seems like it's that way because it was so elusive anatomically and low key for the most part, but just like hormones are crazy important to how we work, the lymphatic system is crazy important to how things keep working. I think most people, if they even think about it, assume everything flows back directly into the circulatory system, but aside from gasses, that seems like mostly an outbound channel.

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rvralph803 t1_ircixr4 wrote

Bilin, a byproduct of breaking down hemoglobin. It's also why poop is brown.

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twoRay t1_ire1kvx wrote

Also the colour of the bruise depends on the colour of your skin. As your skin obviously overlaps the bruise and causes a distortion in the colour.

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[deleted] t1_irbevp0 wrote

[removed]

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AmayaMaka5 t1_irbgpek wrote

I can imagine that would be kinda terrifying. I'm a worrier in the first place, but I'd be constantly worried that there was something internally wrong.

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GrifterDingo t1_irbhtrj wrote

Would gentle massaging of a bruise help is go away faster?

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pc_flying t1_irbl7p0 wrote

No

On the contrary, it's likely to cause more damage, rupture blood vessels, and increase healing time

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DRAGONMASTER- t1_irbrrr3 wrote

What's the best practice then? Maybe neosporin and otherwise don't touch it? Soaking it in a bath helpful at all? Does intentionally reducing inflammation (e.g., by ibuprofin or a topical steroid) potentially hurt the process?

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fullcolorkitten t1_irbsr7r wrote

Neosporin wouldn't help. A bath may increase good blood flow but probably won't improve on the bruise healing to a noticeable degree. Ibuprofen can make blood thinner and increase bleeding so would be counterproductive at least right away. I don't know what if any benefit steroids would have.

Bruising often accompanies injury or trauma - some treatments may decrease pain and swelling making the area look better but not necessarily healing the bruising faster.

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conspiracydawg t1_ircy8ux wrote

What WOULD help it heal faster?

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RicketyHandjob t1_iref1wj wrote

Eating a well-balanced diet. Assuming you're otherwise healthy, nutrient deficiencies prolong wound healing.

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pc_flying t1_irchng8 wrote

Neosporin is an antibiotic, used to prevent or treat minor infections. If the bruised area included broken skin (a cut, scrape, puncture, or burn that compromised the barrier the skin provides) then applying neosporin or another topical antibiotic could be beneficial

There is no reason to apply an antibiotic to a plain bruise

National Domestic Violence Hotline website as this line of inquiry is potentially concerning

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notbad2u t1_irbtxio wrote

If your body is otherwise healthy then you should just let it do its thing. If you're not otherwise healthy then the list of possible answers varies (into opposites) depending on what else is wrong. Example: (as I understand it) a warm bath should dilate blood vessels in the skin. A cold bath will contract surface vessels and dilate deeper ones. Hot and cold aren't the only things that will dilate/contract blood vessels though -- a bruise for instance...

A bruise is a result of damaged cells. There will be cleanup and rebuilding going on. Conscious Interference is unlikely to help unless you know exactly what to do, but in that case you probably also knew what to do to build a strong healing response so just relaxing would be your best bet.

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jono444 t1_irbt6ju wrote

Anything that increases blood flow (hot baths, exercise, sunlight,etc) will increase the inflammation response. This is why fevers are a thing and generally why being static and immobile causes wounds to take forever to heal

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Wtrset t1_irc2y43 wrote

I've read studies about using leeches to help "clean up" bruises more quickly. Of course you then have the bite mark to contend with...

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[deleted] t1_irbnhdt wrote

[removed]

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Chiparoo t1_ircx4kg wrote

I recently had an iron infusion due to anemia, and I noticed that the bruise from the IV lasted way longer than bruises typically do on me. Could this be due to "liberated iron"?

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GoodGoodGoody t1_irbk0dg wrote

Excreted as waste: my understanding is that poo is brown from dead red blood cells tinting it.

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Lopsided_Chicken400 t1_ircmv52 wrote

It's not dead RBCs that make feces brown. It's a byproduct of hemoglobin catabolism called stercobilin.

Dying RBCs are removed from circulation by the spleen, and the hemoglobin inside them is split into its heme and globin components. The iron is then removed from the heme group. The remainder of the heme is a yellow pigment called bilirubin. Bilirubin is then put into the bloodstream and makes it's way to the liver. Liver cells remove bilirubin from circulation and package it into bile. Bile is released from the liver and gallbladder into the small intestine to aid in the digestion of fats. The bilirubin then works its way through the rest of the GI tract. In the colon, bilirubin is converted by bacteria in other pigments. One of those pigments, stercobilin, is brown.

And that is why feces are brown. It's also why the feces of a person with liver failure or a bile duct obstruction will be gray/white and fatty.

Edit: bike -> bile

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UseaJoystick t1_ircurlr wrote

The human body is fascinating. Recycling dead RBCs into Iron for presumably new RBCs, and the remainder into bile for enhanced digestion. The body really knows how to use everything to its fullest extent.

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Lopsided_Chicken400 t1_ird4i9l wrote

The bilirubin in the bile isn't the part that aids in digestion. Bile is a mixture of quite a few things. Some of those things, like bilirubin, are wastes that the body is eliminating in the feces. Other components are functional.

One of the functional components of bile is bile salts. Bile salts are produced in the liver and they aid in digestion by emulsifying fats. Emulsification is important because it makes it easier for the enzymes that digest the fat (lipases from the pancreas, mainly) to access it.

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Kirk_Kerman t1_ird3bru wrote

They're called salvage pathways. It's a lot less energetically expensive to recycle.

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MOON3R2448 t1_ircci78 wrote

Forgive my ignorance here but I thought the spleen was more of a useless organ? And we could live fine without one?

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Lopsided_Chicken400 t1_ircnd9z wrote

You can live without the spleen because, after its removal, the liver and kidneys will take up its functions.

But the spleen is an important part of the lymphatic and immune system. The same is true for the tonsils and appendix, which are also lymphoid organs that can be safely removed.

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EZP t1_irct70j wrote

I needed my damaged spleen removed as an adult. The doctor said that basically nothing would change for me after losing my spleen. From what I remember him telling me the spleen is more important in younger children as an immune defense but all he said to me was that I should make sure to stay up to date on my vaccinations. It probably helps that I’m relatively young and am in good health but I’ve noticed no differences in the years post splenectomy. The spleen isn’t useless but it’s far from vital.

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Mage-Tutor-13 t1_irbeqf8 wrote

Does this account for like large amounts or long term internal bleeding that surfaces to skin visibility as well?

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Fiyanggu t1_irdbee9 wrote

Would it help healing to use a needle and syringe to suck out the bruise?

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Wjreky t1_irdg71p wrote

Is it normal for a bruise to leave a stain for a long time? I clipped my thigh on a tablecorner like, 2 months ago, and I can still faintly see the spot in a bright light

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