I'm a fairly aggressive golfer with a big distance when i get it right. Some of my shots resulted in hitting the ground, or not catching the call in the middle of the club, and this was bothering me a bit, causing some pain to run up the back of my wrist. On a couple of occasions I was rubbing it for a minute or so because it hurt. After the 3rd and final round of golf, it was giving me a bit of an ache throughout my forearm.
A couple of days later, when golf was left well behind and I was at the Ski resort, I chose not to ski on the first day due to my INR being 3.9. I said to myself that 3.5 was the max to ski, not worth the risk. My arm was bothering me a bit, but wasn't too bad.
The next day, day 2 of skiing, my arm was the reason not to ski. It had progressively got worse, and was now keeping me awake. Desperate to ski, i called a sports physiotherapist, who came to my hotel room. He noticed the bruise and commented on it.... I hadn't even noticed anything up to this point. There was indeed a very large bruise. At this time I couldn't straighten my arm, and any slight jarring caused me to wince. He diagnoses it as torn radialis muscle. He can feel a 'golf ball' hematoma in the muscle at the joint, and that's what's stopping me straightening the arm. A hematoma is a large pocket of blood that forms as a result of an injury, where it has nowhere else to run to. I really can't straighten the arm, and the physio can't either - it's jammed at about 15 degrees open.
At this point my arm looked like this:
The next day, it was worse, and i went to hospital. They X-Rayed it and confirmed it was not a fracture:
Next day, its worse, and looks like this:
I then visited my usual sports physiotherapist at home who was quite shocked by the level of bruising and lack of mobility. He was even more shocked when i could barely explain how it happened! He decided to stick some physio tape to the bruised area to help it drain. This seemed to work quite well, here's a picture of it after it was removed - the skin coloured areas where the tape was and the purple where it wasn't. I'm almost liking it - tattoo style!
Its very clear this is warfarin at work, but to what extent was warfarin involved? Clearly the warfarin made the bruise, but what about the actual injury? I feel that the muscle pain would have happened anyway, but perhaps just brushed it off in a few days. I think the warfarin made the problem a hundred times worse. I barely did anything, i don't even recall any injury as such, just a number of little pains, nothing I haven't shaken off before.
I sit here writing this posting 14 days after the 'injury' and the bruising has mostly gone, but the rock hard hematoma is still alive and well. Perhaps its gone down a bit, and perhaps i can get the arm open more, but the arm still won't straighten. There's a ton less pain now, it only twinges when it gets close to straight. I hope the hematoma will absorb back and behave, because the idea of having it surgically removed doesn't sound too nice at all.
A couple of days later, when golf was left well behind and I was at the Ski resort, I chose not to ski on the first day due to my INR being 3.9. I said to myself that 3.5 was the max to ski, not worth the risk. My arm was bothering me a bit, but wasn't too bad.
The next day, day 2 of skiing, my arm was the reason not to ski. It had progressively got worse, and was now keeping me awake. Desperate to ski, i called a sports physiotherapist, who came to my hotel room. He noticed the bruise and commented on it.... I hadn't even noticed anything up to this point. There was indeed a very large bruise. At this time I couldn't straighten my arm, and any slight jarring caused me to wince. He diagnoses it as torn radialis muscle. He can feel a 'golf ball' hematoma in the muscle at the joint, and that's what's stopping me straightening the arm. A hematoma is a large pocket of blood that forms as a result of an injury, where it has nowhere else to run to. I really can't straighten the arm, and the physio can't either - it's jammed at about 15 degrees open.
At this point my arm looked like this:
The next day, it was worse, and i went to hospital. They X-Rayed it and confirmed it was not a fracture:
Next day, its worse, and looks like this:
I then visited my usual sports physiotherapist at home who was quite shocked by the level of bruising and lack of mobility. He was even more shocked when i could barely explain how it happened! He decided to stick some physio tape to the bruised area to help it drain. This seemed to work quite well, here's a picture of it after it was removed - the skin coloured areas where the tape was and the purple where it wasn't. I'm almost liking it - tattoo style!
Its very clear this is warfarin at work, but to what extent was warfarin involved? Clearly the warfarin made the bruise, but what about the actual injury? I feel that the muscle pain would have happened anyway, but perhaps just brushed it off in a few days. I think the warfarin made the problem a hundred times worse. I barely did anything, i don't even recall any injury as such, just a number of little pains, nothing I haven't shaken off before.
I sit here writing this posting 14 days after the 'injury' and the bruising has mostly gone, but the rock hard hematoma is still alive and well. Perhaps its gone down a bit, and perhaps i can get the arm open more, but the arm still won't straighten. There's a ton less pain now, it only twinges when it gets close to straight. I hope the hematoma will absorb back and behave, because the idea of having it surgically removed doesn't sound too nice at all.
