Muscle Contusion

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I was in a martial arts class and sustained a contusion to my outer thigh, approx. 5 inches above my knee.  The trama was severe enough that I could not stand for several minutes and then could only, barely, limp around.  For the first several days, only the point of impact was painful.  After about a week, the pain started spreading across both my anterior and posterior thigh muscles.  My thigh was painful to the touch; simply brushing your hand along the skin would be quite painful as would applying pressure.  At night, simply moving my leg would send the muscle into a cramp for a minute or so.

A hematoma like discoloration around 10 cm in diameter developed on my inner thigh, directly across from the area of injury to my outer thigh.  About a week after the injury I saw a doctor at a walk in clinic who sent me to the ER to be evaluated for DVT.  The ultrasound was negative.

2.5 weeks after the injury, the "muscle pain" seems to be spreading to my hip area and to the area behind my knee.  If I sit still for an hour or so, my thigh muscles are very painful and stiff but the pain subsides after a few minutes of movement.

Overall, the intensity of the pain in any specific area seems to be reducing but the reach of the painful area seems to be spreading.
Should I be concerned.  Does this progression sound normal?


This discussion is related to Possible Wegener's.

[Dr. Kokil Mathur]

Hi
Welcome to the MedHelp forum!
You should consult a doctor immediately. So much pain, very sensitive skin to touch, redness etc and a spreading pathology indicates infection. Either there is an abscess formed or there is infection of the skin (cellulitis). Please do not ignore this as this may become dangerous. Also get your blood sugar tested as diabetes causes infection to spread.
It is difficult to comment beyond this at this stage. Please let me know if there is any thing else and do keep me posted. Take care!

[LivingInHope]

I don't know if it's normal progression, but you might try taking flaxseed oil capsules (if it's okay with your doctor/pharmacist) OTC, which have a mild platelet anticoagulation effect in case of any clots.  But if with the deep venous thrombosis (assuming that's what DVT means) testing, if they determined well after the fact there were no clots, you may want to see if massage and moist heat on the area would help, as well as perhaps ultrasound by a physical therapist to the area.