Bruise on leg after dental extraction

[loveyorkshiredales]

Sorry posting for traffic, I had tooth extraction which requires stitches etc six days ago. I remember my one leg particularly hurting in calf area straight after surgery. I didn't notice too much. I have today noticed a 20p deep purple bruise on back of my leg just by knee area. Could this be DVT? my leg is now hurting, this could be now psychological thing. i had local anaesthetic. I remember after two days feeling sick and heart racing but i put it down to antibiotics or general shock as my body went through shock.

I think a DVT is normally more red and inflammed than bruised. Are you sure you haven't just knocked yourself.

It isn't really anaesthetics that are a risk factor for DVT's, it's the lying in bed for prolonged periods afterwards that is the risk factor.

Call NHS so you can get some professional advice this evening?

yes the surgery lasted for more than 40 minutes. I remember it clearly hurting on way home in car, I haven't done any heavy work or don't remember hurting it physically. This is very strange.

This is how to looks like, it has yellow ring around it.

attached photo but given what happen on website last week, will need approval from mumsnet before posting here.

Did the dentist lean on you during extraction? My husband had a tooth that put up a huge fight and the dentist did lean on him at one point to get the thing out.

That just looks like a regular bruise.

Could it have got bruised somehow by sitting in the dentist chair, maybe you wouldn't have noticed at the time because of what was happening in your mouth

@TinselTarTars
on her calf?!

no i was lying down on the surgery bench and dentist did not lean down . he has performed the surgery from the side if tgat makes sense

Correlation is not causation.

It's just a coincidence - you'll have banged your leg without noticing I expect.

DVT isn't caused by anaesthetic or surgical procedures. As a pp said the risk after surgery comes from being immobile for long periods. If your tooth extraction took more than 2 hours and your calf was trapped and squeezed and you were unable to move it, maybe. But given your description of it I think it's very unlikely (I've had several myself BTW). Seems more likely to be a painful bruise, probably from pressing your leg against something but that you didn't notice as you were understandably stressed while the procedure was happening.

I hope so, shall i still mention to the dental surgeon or leave it?

If you are at all worried I would seek medical advice.

that's not true - surgery and anaesthesia do affect thromboembolism risk, it's not just immobility post-procedure. That said, not sure a dental chair extraction would count as high risk even for someone with a high baseline risk.

Really? That's quite hard to separate out, plus when you look it's often in the case of people who have a history of previous clots - which is itself an increased risk factor. Can you give a link showing the risks specifically from surgery / anaesthesia and not other factors?

I'd maintain that OP is very unlikely to have a DVT from what she's said.

Was it one of those chairs that go flat? Is it possible there was something on the chair, part of the frame, that caused it? I get very tense when I get nervous and wouldn't necessarily notice if I had jammed my leg against something such as one of the arms or another part of the frame.

It's just a bruise isn't it? What do got think the dentist will do?

i don't remember any frame or structure on the chair , it was flat leather chair.

The reason i mention about seeing dentist to rule out DVT

dentists don't treat DVT. you also don't get a bruise like that with DVT. it's more of a whole leg thing. Contact GP if worried. I guess you just bashed your leg.

If the dentists is handy I'd pop in and just say, bit odd, noticed this after the op, I'm working could it be DVT , is that a possible side effect from this? They'll know the risks from their own treatments. If you're still worried try GP.

With a dvt you would eventually have a red and swollen leg. Keep an eye out for that and any breathing issues. Your bruise is v unlikely to be a dvt. And there is no point telling the dentist.

I will contact GP, leg is hurting only this one. constant headaches. I don't gave any breathing issues.

Use a pen to draw the outline of the mark in the meantime, so you can tell if it gets bigger.

with insight that none of this is at all useful to the OP....

Surgery is an inflammatory process and causes activation of the clotting cascade by a mixture of mechanisms. Makes sense when you think about it - surgery is an injury and the natural evolutionary response to that is to stop the bleeding...our bodies can't tell though whether the injury is a controlled process at the hands of a surgeon or because a bear just ripped a leg off. Some procedures/types of surgery are higher risk than others (pelvic, lower limb joint replacement, cardiac/vascular surgeries being examples of higher risk categories for elective surgery). The duration of procedure can also affect clotting risk and that will be partly to do with intraoperative immobility, but there has to be more to it than just immobility (otherwise a whole bunch of people who are normally immobile for various reasons would be needing thromboprophylaxis and that isn't the case). Getting up and mobile as soon as possible does reduce the risk of developing a clot, but doesn't take away the risk entirely and mobility is just one of many modifiable factors (smoking and being overweight being two of the other commoner modifiable risks). Surgery and risk of DVT – GPnotebook (hopefully this link works - it's not to anything terribly high-brow, but it outlines some of the basics, with links to other sources).

Every single patient having a surgical procedure will have a venous thromboembolism risk form filled out and based on that risk reduction measures will be taken. For low risk day case surgery on someone with no particular risk factors (a huge proportion of the elective surgical population) that might just include TED stockings/foot pumps while they're in theatre, staying well hydrated and getting back to normal pretty quickly. For other procedures it may include adding in pharmacological treatments (heparins/other anticoagulants) for varying lengths of time and that may be the case even with day-case procedures for which prolonged immobilisation isn't anticipated. The risk of surgical site bleeding due to pharmacological methods has to be factored in on top of the clotting risk and that may affect whether someone gets drugs post-op or not.

If you're really bored, you can google the Caprini score and fiddle about with some numbers for hypothetical scenarios - you'll see that your risk of post-op dvt will change quite dramatically depending on the type of surgery and if you add in/subtract different other risk factors.

Historically it used to be thought that the type of anaesthetic had a big influence in the risk of post op thromboembolism, but that is less clear (partly because GAs are better than they used to be). Intuitively it makes sense that neuraxial/regional anaesthetic should reduce the risk. There is often benefit in avoiding GA if the surgery allows (things like less nausea & vomiting, less cognitive dysfunction, better pain control will all allow for earlier mobilisation).