# Question about bruising and falling



## DancingArabian (Jul 15, 2011)

Bruises sometimes take a day or two to appear, that's all I know. Might want to google causes of bruising and see if that gives you any clues.


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## thetempest89 (Aug 18, 2013)

I don't think it'll bruise. I've had other falls before and have never bruised.


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## speedy da fish (May 7, 2009)

Depends what you landed on I suppose. Getting hit by a car, you are hitting the car and the road and they are pretty solid surfaces. Falling off a horse, you usually are lucky enough to fall onto grass or arena surface. It feels pretty hard and sore when you land but it must cushion it enough so it doesn't bruise ?

Thinking about it, I bruise quite easily. I have bruises nearly all the time knocking myself around the yard. The only time I bruised when falling off a horse was when I landed on a jump (more like through the jump) and I hit the top of my leg on the edge of the filler and jump wing. That stung!

It is odd though, never though about this before. :lol:


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## thetempest89 (Aug 18, 2013)

I've fallen onto sand before that was fine, my other fall we were on grass but I landed onto cement on my hip. No bruising. The arena yesterday was pretty hard, and I hurt way more today then I ever did when I got hit by a car last year. But it is interesting, getting stupid bruises over small things but over bigger things? Nope.

I was just wondering if there was a scientific reasoning for this lol I've had this question in my head for years.


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

Landing on a softer surface will not always leave a bruise, but I've had so many "mystery bruises" in my horsekeeping I don't experience that very often. =/
Really, if you land on anything but cement or asphalt and you have a lot of muscle, it will protect your BONES from being broken. That's why it's important to keep in really good shape around horses. They are as tall as most ladders, ya know!


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## horsecrazed09 (Sep 24, 2012)

Chances are you did bruise it it wont always see the bruising discoloration comes from broken blood vessels.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

thetempest89 said:


> I've fallen onto sand before that was fine, my other fall we were on grass but I landed onto cement on my hip. No bruising. The arena yesterday was pretty hard, and I hurt way more today then I ever did when I got hit by a car last year. But it is interesting, getting stupid bruises over small things but over bigger things? Nope.
> 
> I was just wondering if there was a scientific reasoning for this lol I've had this question in my head for years.


Hey TT89, when you fall, a relatively large area of your body makes contact with the ground, and this results in lower force per unit area body surface than when you get poked with something, or bang your shin, or walk into furniture. The force of the impact is spread across relatively more surface.

The higher the place from which you fall, the greater the force of the fall, so as the height increases, eventually it does become a bruising, internal-vessel-rupturing, dangerous thing, especially on a hard unyielding surface.

The things that bruise us usually involve a forceful impact on a small area.

Also, proximity to bone is a factor - your shins will bruise more easily than your calves, for example, because muscle is more elastic than bone and this absorbs some of the force of the impact and spreads it out more harmlessly than a direct knock to skin over relatively unyielding bone (where the impact is also more likely to be "pointy"). This is similar to the concept of crumple zones for absorbing impacts in vehicle crashes, or a helmet with a crushable shell lining compared to a hard hat only, or jogging in canvas shoes compared to joggers with thick soft soles.

A fall hurts usually more than a bruising knock because it activates more pain receptors (because more surface). The individual pain receptors don't trigger as much as they would in a sharper blow, but there are more of them. It's like 1000 people shouting out compared to 20 screaming hysterically - who makes more noise? :wink:


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