Ecchymosis is a scientific term for discoloration, which is more commonly known as a bruise.
Keep reading this blog to know about what is ecchymosis and causes, symptoms, and treatment.
What Is Ecchymosis?
Ecchymosis is the medical term or the common bruising or the purpura. Well, the term of ecchymosis describes as a flat, purple, or blue patch measuring 1 centimeter or more in the diameter.
Ecchymosis usually occurs when the blood vessels near the surface of the skin get damaged, usually by the impact of an injury. This will cause discoloration.
The force of the impact causes the blood vessels to burst open and also leak the blood. This blood will get trapped beneath the skin, where it forms into a little pool that will turn your skin blue, black, or purple.
After injuring the blood vessels, the platelets in the blood will come to help the clotting process. The clothing will help to prevent the injured blood vessels from leaking any more blood and making your bruise even bigger.
Some of the protein of the blood is called clotting factors, which will also help to stop the bleeding so that the tissue starts healing. Ecchymosis will typically treat between 1 and 3 weeks after the injury.
Areas of ecchymosis that are different from hematomas and bruises. The swollen patches which can form when the blood collects and clots outside of a blood vessel.
But the hematomas may appear raised, while the patches of the ecchymosis are flat.
Bruises are typically caused by an injury such as a knock or a fall, while the ecchymosis is not always a result of trauma. Diseases and other conditions also cause ecchymosis.
What Are The Types Of Ecchymosis?
The signs and types of ecchymosis will depend on the part that will be affected.
1. Eyes
Raccoon eyes cause the blue bruises or the dark purple skin under the eyes. The name of raccoon eyes comes from their remembrance to the dark circles under the raccoon’s eyes.
Sometimes doctors will call the raccoon eyes periorbital ecchymosis. Because periorbital means around the eyes, and ecchymosis means a change in color.
Raccoon eyes can occur after the injury or the illness that will cause the tiny blood vessels to bleed into the under-eye skin. But raccoon eyes are not the same as the dark circles that can cause when you tire.
These dark circles are much milder than the raccoon eyes, and they need any medical condition. Well, raccoon eyes are also symptoms, not any disease. They are also not dangerous themselves.
But raccoon eyes could be a sign of severe eye or head injury. So, consult with your doctor and do all the right things if you have recently had any injury.
2. Mastoid Region
Battle’s sign or the mastoid ecchymosis sign is a bruise that will appear after a person will break a bone at the base of their skill. This kind of break is known as a basilar skull fracture.
Basilar skull fractures can also lead to permanent brain injury, meningitis, or other complications. Battle’s sign is a crescent-shaped that will appear behind the one or both ears.
The battle’s sign was named after an English surgeon, DR. William Henry Battle, and it can be an indication of a serious head injury. Our skull made up of more than 20 different bones.
The basilar bones are associate at the base of the skull that can protect us by the following structures: eyes, nerves to the head and neck, ears, brain stem, cerebellum or coordination, and balance center.
When one of the basilar bones is broken, blood may pool behind the ear, which will create the battle’s sign bruise. While the battle’s sign may look like ordinary ecchymosis, it is not a result of direct injury behind the ear.
Instead, mastoid ecchymosis is a sign that one or more skull’s bones have been broken. The size of the battle’s sign can a very but it may also extend down the back of the neck.
The person who has a minor basilar factor can treat them easily by receiving immediate medical care and also following proper healthcare at home.
3. Umbilical Region
Cullen’s sign characterize by edema swelling, bruising, and the discoloration of the fatty tissue surrounding the umbilicus navel area.
The Cullen sign can arise because of pancreatitides like inflammation of the pancreas, cancer or the pancreas, liver problem, thyroid cancer, ectopic pregnancy, or some other sources of the internal bleeding in the abdomen.
It was first identified by Dr. Thomas Steohen Cullen in 1918, this condition also often coexists with the grey turner’s sign of a bruising in the abdominal flanks or walls.
While the occurrence is relatively rare, it will seem in less than 1% of ectopic pregnancy and 1-3% of pancreatitis patients. When Cullen signs clinical view then it will mark as a serious health problem.
Cullen signs present as severe the discoloration and the bruising around the patient’s navel. It is also accompanied by the swelling in the umbilical region.
The color of the bruise varies based on the severity of the condition that will range from the yellow/green or in more moderate cases. In severe cases, it will become purple.
Some of the patients also feel discomfort and pain in the affected area. While in the cases of acute pancreatitis, the symptoms of Cullen sign tend to emerge 24 to 72 hours after the onset of the condition.
The treatment of the Cullen sign ultimately means taking on the disease or the disorder that will cause it.
Pancreatitis for instance taken on by directing the fasting, medication for pain, fluid replacement via IV, or the surgery of the pancreas or the gallbladder.
