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Bleeding 20-Year-Old Scar

Anconite

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Jun 27, 2005
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My husband has a large scar on his shin that he recieved when he was about 6 or 7 years old. It is approx 3 inches long and at it's thickest about a centimeter. I think he got it from a garden shear accident or a bike fall or something. It has been completely healed and scarred over for the past 20 years, but in the past 2 weeks or so it's started to scab over and bleed. Just on the scar's location, not anywhere around it. We can't figure out why.

The only changes in our daily routine and life lately are as follows: He has changed his diet drastically, going from about 6 to 10 cans of Dr Pepper a day to 1, and drinking a ton of water. He is also not eating fast food as often either and has become more serious in training with his Kung Fu. (N.Shaolin/N.praying mantis style) He doesnt think he's scratching in his sleep and knows he isn't doing it during the day since it is covered by clothing and he works with his hands building and repairing computers. Plus, why suddenly subconciously scratch a scar on your shin?

It is such an old scar it's not likely he got it busted open when he was practicing. There are no bruises surrounding it and it is not swollen. Just thick flat shiny scabs that sometimes bleed. (ew gross) He said it hurts a little.

Why is this happening? Any ideas?
 
a friend of mine has a scar on his leg from when he was a little kid that started to irritate him a few years back...the problem: tiny bits of glass under the skin. over the years(about 15..), the glass seems to have slowly moved through the tissue to the surface..he would scratch in his sleep and make it worse. went to a doctor who removed every bit he could find, stitched it up and i don't believe he's had a problem since.

whether he's experiencing something similar to my friend or something more serious, the best thing to do is see a doctor.
 
he was given a clean bill of health not too long ago. There are none of the usual signs of skin cancer in the area of the scar or on other parts of his body, either. He had an allergic reaction to a detergent i was using, but this occured 2 weeks after i switched to a hypoallgergenic brand. I'll try to get him to the doctor but that's a difficult thing to do.
 
Anconite said:
he was given a clean bill of health not too long ago. There are none of the usual signs of skin cancer in the area of the scar or on other parts of his body, either. He had an allergic reaction to a detergent i was using, but this occured 2 weeks after i switched to a hypoallgergenic brand. I'll try to get him to the doctor but that's a difficult thing to do.

Wow! 10 cans of Dr. Pepper a day! Glad to hear he's cut back on the soda consumption.
 
a friend of mine has a scar on his leg from when he was a little kid that started to irritate him a few years back...the problem: tiny bits of glass under the skin. over the years(about 15..), the glass seems to have slowly moved through the tissue to the surface..he would scratch in his sleep and make it worse. went to a doctor who removed every bit he could find, stitched it up and i don't believe he's had a problem since.

whether he's experiencing something similar to my friend or something more serious, the best thing to do is see a doctor.

I have heard similar stories with 'moving shrapnel' and old wounds becoming irritated and needing to be reopened many years after they were first sustained.
 
The lower leg tends to heal more slowly and scar more easily. Scar tissue does not have all the properties of normal skin. As a result itching and small amounts of bleeding, even years after the fact, are not all that uncommon. Still, as other posters have suggested, it wouldn't hurt to have a dermatologist take a look at it. If it is something unusual, early treatment is best.
 
A large scar on my knee used to spit out tiny shards of gravel, right up to my 20s. It mustn't have been cleaned properly back when I was 9 or so. Hasn't given any trouble for years now.

Also, you can have an underlying infection that 'erupts' now and then. Henry VIII had a bone infection in his lower leg which would sometimes appear to heal but then start swelling and giving pain. His doctors learned to keep the wound open to relieve the pressure.
 
A large scar on my knee used to spit out tiny shards of gravel, right up to my 20s. It mustn't have been cleaned properly back when I was 9 or so. Hasn't given any trouble for years now.

Also, you can have an underlying infection that 'erupts' now and then. Henry VIII had a bone infection in his lower leg which would sometimes appear to heal but then start swelling and giving pain. His doctors learned to keep the wound open to relieve the pressure.

Due to messing about with motorbikes I have gravel in both knees and one elbow. Sometimes a scintilla of it will make its way to the surface.
 
Due to messing about with motorbikes I have gravel in both knees and one elbow. Sometimes a scintilla of it will make its way to the surface.

Had a pushbike crash a year or so back, resulting in a large nasty knee-graze. Felt sure it was gravelled up as I couldn't seem to get it clean but nothing's come out. Took a long time to heal though.
 

Heh, thank you! Thinking of your grazes too!
Though they're looking better. :sherlock:

Actually, I feel blessed for those particular minor injuries because a. I wasn't badly injured and b. it was the evening of the Manchester bomb, which I didn't hear about until next morning, when I felt grateful for a few little bumps and bruises.
 
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It is such an old scar it's not likely he got it busted open when he was practicing. There are no bruises surrounding it and it is not swollen. Just thick flat shiny scabs that sometimes bleed. (ew gross) He said it hurts a little.

Why is this happening? Any ideas?

I'll be the 4th person to say "get him to a doctor!"
My first thought when I saw the title of this thread was "squamous cell carcinoma."
https://www.webmd.com/melanoma-skin-cancer/guide/squamous-cell-carcinoma#1
I've seen 'em, they're icky. You think they're scabs that are healing, but then they open up again and bleed.
 
I have heard similar stories with 'moving shrapnel' and old wounds becoming irritated and needing to be reopened many years after they were first sustained.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the traditional gender role divide, a friend of mine's mother spent her working life as an industrial seamstress, not in the Pratchettian sense. She had lost count of the number of sewing machine needles which had broken off in her hands - as in, in her hands - over the years, and thought nothing of it as yet another one worked its way back up to the surface. Occupational hazard. And, yes, it could take years, although I don't know how she tracked which was which...
 
Good catch, MorningAngel! (And I tell myself I can proofread . . .:crazy: )
Hopefully, this thread has prompted others to either see a doctor, or excavate old glass or gravel from a scar.
 
Ms petes's daughter had a relatively large (for a little girl) piece of wood emerge from her knee where there was no visible scar before. Just weird.
 
Slightly off topic, it was fascinating to see on the tellybox, an interview with a 65 year old lady who has an inability to feel pain. Apparently this was first noticed at the age of 7 when she broke her arm and it was her mother who noticed that her arm was hanging at a weird angle. The phenomenon is being investigated and so far the medics have found the presence of a high concentration of some natural chemical. Might be of some use in the future.
I'm not sure whether the inability to feel pain is a good or bad thing - it's certainly a good way of telling you that something's wrong. Was important once for me when I woke up feeling a slight pain all over my body. Very strange and usually I ignore. Nothing else appeared wrong, but in hospital I was told that had I waited a few more hours, I would have been on my way through the PGs. Gulp.
I'm sure that people who suffer chronic pain though would love to be in the lady's position.
 
I'm interested to find out what it is that makes this case so special. Some odd pain response is extremely common in autism - hypo or hyper as is usual for us. I don't register pain - I missed warning signs of both appendicitis and pancreatitis until I was in A&E. I first really became aware of pain when I developed fibro - until then I was doing the ignoring broken bones and major cuts thing.
 
I have heard similar stories with 'moving shrapnel' and old wounds becoming irritated and needing to be reopened many years after they were first sustained.

IHTM.

Working in a bar, I picked up a broken glass and felt something go into my left index fingertip. I picked out what I could see. Fast forward a few years and I started to get a weird pain there. Every time I jabbed my fingertip into/onto something, I got this shooting pain. It got worse until one day, when I was hunting, I couldn't stand it anymore and started digging away at my fingertip with my knife. It didn't hurt at all - the skin around it was numb and hardened. It eventually popped out - a bit of glass about 1x1 mm. Never had a problem since.
 
I'm not sure whether the inability to feel pain is a good or bad thing - it's certainly a good way of telling you that something's wrong. Was important once for me when I woke up feeling a slight pain all over my body. Very strange and usually I ignore. Nothing else appeared wrong, but in hospital I was told that had I waited a few more hours, I would have been on my way through the PGs. Gulp.
I'm sure that people who suffer chronic pain though would love to be in the lady's position.

What are the PGs in this context? - your gulp implies not good..
 
Right. What was the cause of the slight pain all over your body PeteS?
 
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