Really hurt my leg - how should I be treating this?

[ReddieEdmayne]

Friday night, a little the worse for wear, I managed to walk full pelt into the corner of a table. It really, really hurt.

several days on and I can still feel a large amount of swelling under the skin, I cant sleep on that side and my leg is achy and unsurprisingly quite a bit sore.

I’ve smothered on arnica cream, but I’m more concerned with reducing the swelling in the muscle. Is this just a ‘wait it out and next time look where you’re going’ scenario?
Bruise is roughly the size of the palm of my hand at this stage.

Anyone? Still very sore, very achy and the muscle under the bruise feels rock hard 😭

Call 111?
Or visit minor injuries if you have one/A&E if you don't and wait to be seen. It sounds like a huge bruise that's come up and would need some kind of scan to work out what's going on beneath the skin so think those are your only options.

I’d RICE it.

Ouch! The hardness you can feel under the bruise is probably a haematoma, which is basically just a collection of blood that has leaked out of the small vessels under the skin. RICE is all you need to do for that and it’ll improve. Please do not go to A&E for a bruise as pp suggested. 😩

I did this when I was 16, fell off a moped onto the corner of a brick, massive great big bruise and rock hard lump.

After a few days went to the GP who said it was just a wait for it to get better job. He said basically a really bad bruise but deep so the blood had formed a solid lump and would slowly break down. Still have a much smaller lump on my thigh 23 yrs later that's clearly not going anywhere.

Oh gosh no I wouldn’t go to A&E with it.
At worst I wondered if it needed the GP and a quick X Ray, but it sounds like what you guys have said, and almost exactly what @FatAgainItsLettuceTime experienced.

Put my mind at rest a bit thank you. I shall try and rest it a bit more and prepare for the fact it may take a bit longer to heal than a normal bruise.
Moving forward I shall also try and walk around things rather than through them 😳

I will add, we have a small, separate from the hospital, x ray department here so GP refers to the unit, when I say GP and quick X Ray I meant sent to that, not to A&E just to clarify.

A bruise won't show on an XR. X-rays show bones

@ChocHotolate
X ray’s do show soft tissue as well as bone, majority of chest x rays are to look at the lungs and they can also be used to look at the bowel. Not saying one is needed, just that they aren’t only for orthopaedics

I slipped climbing into the bath and crashed down right on the edge of the bath. The top inside part of my left thigh bruised instantly and looked pretty similar possibly slightly worse than that. I also ended up with a huge lump underneath it. By the following day that bruise had now spread the entire length and width of my thigh all the way down to my knee and back up to my bum cheek. I did go get it checked out at the hospital but was told to just keep shoving witch Hazel onto it. It was painful to touch for a good while until Someone at one of my aqua fit classes recommended arnica tablets. Think it took around a week for the bruising to start turning yellow and then fading altogether but arnica pills definitely made all the difference. I do still sport a lovely bulge at the top of my thigh though and this was over 10 years ago. Although nowadays it's much less prominent due to all the excess thigh fat I have 😂 I also fell and badly injured my neck about 8 years ago. Exactly the same thing happened great big massive lump protruding from the base of my neck to my upper back. I honestly thought my neck was broken from the way it looked. And again I still to this day have a very prominent lump at the base of my neck. I must have some dodgy body that doesn't heal properly or something.