it’s time to call a doctor, Dr. Wang says.
“The first thing your primary care provider will ask is whether you’re on any medication, like a blood thinner or if you take aspirin, and they will probably order a complete blood cell count and possibly additional blood work to look at your bleeding/clotting ratio to see what might be wrong,” she says. “If there are abnormalities in the blood system or the bleeding/clotting ratio, they may send you to a hematologist to see if there’s a reason for the excessive bruising.”
Cancer cells circulating in the blood can throw off the bleeding/clotting ratio causing excessive bruising or other bleeding problems, Dr. Wang says. “That’s why it’s important to get bloodwork done to get things checked out. If you have a normal platelet count, normal white blood cell count and your blood test is normal, it could be you just had extra trauma without realizing it, or you could have taken too much aspirin. If you’re on a blood thinner, you might need to decrease the dose.”
If too much aspirin or too strong a dose of a blood thinner is found to be the culprit, adjusting the dose will likely cause the unexplained bruises to clear up. The only way to know for sure what’s causing excessive bruising is to get bloodwork done and talk with your doctor about the results, Dr. Wang says.
