Reasons Why You Bruise Easily
Any type of traumatic injury, such as a fall, can cause capillaries (small blood vessels) near your skin's surface to break and leak red blood cells. This causes the reddish-purple or "black and blue" appearance of bruises on your skin.
Technically known as contusions, bruises may result from virtually any injury to blood vessels in your skin. As your body begins to heal, and metabolizes the blood cells, the bruise will typically fade to a green, yellow, or brown color before disappearing entirely.
It's virtually inevitable that you'll get a bruise once in awhile, but if you have bruises appearing often and can't figure out why, there could be an underlying reason. You may have simply bumped your arm or leg and forgotten, or it could be something else entirely.
9 Reasons You May Bruise Easily
1. Your Age
As you get older, your skin loses some of the protective fatty layer that provides cushioning against bumps and falls. Your skin also becomes thinner while the production of collagen slows. This means that it generally takes much less force to cause a bruise than it did when you were younger.
2. Purpuric Dermatosis
This vascular condition, which is more common in the elderly, causes thousands of tiny bruises, often on your shins, which may have the appearance of cayenne pepper from afar.1 The bruises are the result of blood leaking out of small capillaries.
3. Blood Disorders
Blood disorders such as hemophilia and leukemia can cause unexplained bruising, often because your blood fails to clot properly. If you have severe and frequent unexplained bruising, it's a good idea to see a physician to rule out such disorders, especially if it seemed to come on suddenly.
4. Diabetes
People with diabetes may develop dark skin discolorations, often in areas where skin touches other skin frequently. These discolorations may be mistaken for bruises, but they are actually due to underlying insulin resistance.
5. Excessive Straining During Exercise
Putting your muscles under excessive strain, such as may occur during heavy weight lifting, can cause blood vessels to burst and lead to bruising. Microscopic tears in your muscle fiber caused by exercise can also cause bruises. In addition, if you engage in sports or vigorous exercise, you may be exposed to bumps and small traumas that cause bruises but not remember the actual impacts.
6. Certain Medications
Medications such as aspirin, anticoagulant medications, and anti-platelet agents reduce your blood's clotting ability and make bruising more likely. Medications including aspirin, prednisone, prednisolone, oral contraceptives, and others may also weaken your blood vessels, which increases the likelihood of bruises.2
7. Family History
If you have close family members that tend to bruise easily, there's a chance you will too (although there are usually steps you can take to overcome this potential genetic tendency).
8. Pale Skin
Pale skin doesn't make you more prone to bruising, but it does make any bruises you do get more visible than they would be on someone with darker skin.
9. Sun Damage
While your body needs regular sun exposure to produce vitamin D (and get a host of additional benefits), excessive sun exposure – especially the type that leads to burning – can cause your skin to lose its pliability and resilience. This, in turn, makes bruising easier and more noticeable.
