Does anyone else have slow wound healing?

[antherder]

I was curious if you also have very easy bruising or unexplained bruises that appear when there was literally no trigger or cause?

I do. And they take a long time to fade.

@arewenearlythereyet, my wounds seem to take ages to heal too, but not quite as long as yours. My blood seems to take longer than it should to clot as well.

 

[me/cfs 27931]

Low vitamin d can cause slow wound healing.

Another Vitamin D anecdote.

Whenever I get face or mouth sores, I supplement with 20,000 IU Vitamin D3 for a few days. It always helps heal very quickly. I've been doing this for 15 years, and it hasn't failed me yet.

As a baseline, I take 5000 IU Vitamin D3 daily whenever I don't get sufficient sun exposure.

My Vitamin D tests (25(OH)) are always in the normal range (60-80 nmol/liter).

 

[PatJ]

I was curious if you also have very easy bruising or unexplained bruises that appear when there was literally no trigger or cause?

Some information about unexplained or easy bruising:
site one (mentions that chronic inflammatory diseases as one possiblity),
site 2 (several reasons including vitamin deficiencies).

Spontaneous bruising is sometimes listed as a side effect or symptom CFS/ME. Here are more PR threads related to bruising.

And here is another PR thread about taking a long time to heal from cuts and bruises.

 

[Gingergrrl]

Yes sometimes, mainly on tips of my fingers ...these are rarer though (maybe one every couple of months). These clear quite quickly though. Any reason?

I was asking b/c I was curious if there is a link between cuts and wounds taking a long time to heal and spontaneous bruises that appear and take a long time to fade? My thought was that blood is slow to clot but I do not know if this is the reason or why this is the case? Although for me with MCAS, I think histamine (or another substance?) makes blood thinner and bruising very common. But I can't remember the reasons why (or if this pertains to you)?

I do. And they take a long time to fade.

Interesting. At one point I had 17 bruises just on my legs but that was a few years ago when my MCAS was bad. At present I do not have any but am pretty sure I will again at some point.

Some information about unexplained or easy bruising:
site one (mentions that chronic inflammatory diseases as one possiblity),
site 2 (several reasons including vitamin deficiencies).

Thanks @PatJ and I will look at the links. I test very low on B-12 and Folate so I guess I do have a vitamin deficiency (and without supplementation, I test very low on Vit D as well).

 

[adreno]

If you have slow clotting, easy bruising and slow wound healing, I would consider vitamin K.

 

[Marco]

Same.
I used to heal extremely well and fast
Now I always get "Black blood bruising" under the skin etc that takes months to clear up form even small things.
NOT just from getting older, ever since this damn illness got worse 13 or more years ago now and long before I had neuropathy.

Interesting - not only do I get frequent bruising from even just kneeling on the ground but I had a fall a while back hit my elbow and the bruise was jet black, seemed thick like leather and took around a year to fade.

My hands are also constantly cracking and bleeding (although I know I have a confirmed fungal infection - Trichophyton rubrum - which may cause the cracking or the cracking may have allowed the infection).

 

[PatJ]

My hands are also constantly cracking and bleeding (although I know I have a confirmed fungal infection - Trichophyton rubrum - which may cause the cracking or the cracking may have allowed the infection).

I had dry hands for many years, and my fingers would go through periods of cracking and bleeding. No amount of hand moisturizer helped for more than a few minutes. Once I started taking high dose iodine my skin became much softer and more flexible, and not just on my hands.

 

[nokmax76]

I have had ME for just over three decades now and slow healing was one of the first symptoms I noticed. Prior to being chronic I healed fairly fast, but since then my skin seems to be the old guy crossing the road while my life is one of the cars at the lights, honking him to hurry up. I bruise easier than I should and the scars from even minor cuts and scrapes hang around on my body like tatoos.

Like many of my other symptoms though, I'm blessed that, though the healing has got worse, the decline has been gradual. Apart from a persistent ten-year old wart on my thigh which has even resisted repeated freezing, I've never had to be offerred supplements or specific treatments to repair a wound and my lovely-pretty boy face still heals normally

A strange addition to the healing and bruising has occurred over the last couple of years. If I am using any kind of electrical tool for more than a few minutes or engaging muscles in a specific activity for any length of time - using a handsaw say - I will bruise at the location of the most active muscles. The first time it happened was the worse for obvious reasons because I was unaware of the chance of it happening, and have got used to shrugging off and going through the constant fibro pain barrier in order to get things done. So the bruise swelled to the size of a golf ball and took about two weeks to disappear. Ever since, I have been careful to limit my activities. I don't attempt much DIY, now for brainfog reasons, mostly but whenever I feel pain during a stretch or strain activity I stop. I'm even wary stirring porridge nowadays - I kid you not.

I believe some kind of Vitamin D dysfunction is at play because the healing and bruising is worse in winter for me than summer - however, non-sunlight Vit D supplement does nothing for me -on any level.

 

[PhoenixDown]

So many of us have co-morbitities which could effect the healing process.

You said titties .

I also experience slow wound healing, I still have a scar on my knee from a scratch I got two years ago.

My main ME symptom is that my muscles and joints don't heal from injuries. When ever I exert myself the threshold for further injury is permanently lowered. Has anyone heard of anything like this?

 

[nokmax76]

You said titties .

I also experience slow wound healing, I still have a scar on my knee from a scratch I got two years ago.

My main ME symptom is that my muscles and joints don't heal from injuries. When ever I exert myself the threshold for further injury is permanently lowered. Has anyone heard of anything like this?

They don't heal at all or they take a really long time to heal like your knee scar? The latter, I believe is quite common. But not to heal at all would put you in the 25% category unfortunately. I hope you're still able to live independently. I'd be interested to know what levels of exertion are you talking about? An aerobic workout - cleaning out a fridge - doing the washing up....?

 

[PinkPanda]

Vitamin B5 may speed up wound healing:
http://www.umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/vitamin-b5-pantothenic-acid

Quote:

Skin Care and Wound Healing

Preliminary research suggests that vitamin B5 has moisturizing effects on the skin, however, researchers aren't clear why it works. Other studies, mostly in test tubes and animals but a few on people, suggest that vitamin B5 supplements may speed wound healing, especially following surgery. This may be particularly true if vitamin B5 is combined with vitamin C.

 

[ljimbo423]

I also take a long time to heal. I still have a bunch of fading red marks on my shins from very minor scrapes last summer. I think the immune system dysfunction from cfs is preventing my body from healing in a timely manner.

Immune system dysfunction in cfs is well known. My best understanding of mine is that I have a high TH2 (adaptive) and a low TH1 (Innate) immunity. I use to catch 6-8 colds and flu's a year until just recently.

Colostrum has helped with that significantly. The innate immune system is the first line of defense against colds and flu's. So that tells me my innate immunity is low. A strong, balanced, innate or TH1 immunity is crucial to healing-

Both impaired and excessive innate immune responses can promote nonhealing wounds.

LINK

 

[panckage]

My cuts wouldn't scab over and just stayed wet. It turned out it was NSAIDs (ibuprofen, Aleve, aspirin, etc) that were causing my blood not to clot and once I stopped taking them my wounds healed normally

 

[PhoenixDown]

The latter, I believe is quite common. But not to heal at all would put you in the 25% category unfortunately. I hope you're still able to live independently. I'd be interested to know what levels of exertion are you talking about?

I'm 100% bed bound, can't even stand up without damaging my knees, I'm very severe and rely on carers on a daily basis. Back in 2007 it was weight training that would be an over exertion, then I became brittler and brittle, by 2010 I couldn't walk for more than 15 minutes. I had to give up driving, playing guitar, everything, now I can't even type on my laptop (have to use my touchscreen phone).

 

[Sea]

I have slow wound healing and scar easily from small scrapes. I had a follow up appointment with a surgeon after an operation and after checking the wound he refused to believe that I had made the appointment at the proper time until he double checked the date of my operation.

 

[Carl]

I did have very slow healing, scars forming after very minor scratches, no raised scabs forming and minor wounds/scratches just growing out more than healing.

I then made sure that I digested protein correctly which is difficult with multiple urease positive infections in my stomach, if you know how they work, counteracting them becomes easier which also stops the ammonia excess and sometimes elevated blood ph.

Poor protein digestion and amino acid availability could be a factor in your problems. Nutrients such as vit c, zinc etc are needed but are less a factor. Healing requires the production of collagen, which there are different types, with types 1 and 3 being similar and often grouped together. This requires certain amino acids, such as Lysine, Proline, Alanine with others in smaller quantities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collagen

Gelatin, preferably hydrolysed so that digestion is less important as stomach function in CFS is usually very poor, provides the nutrients required for healing. Bone broth and similar can provide the needed nutrients but will require digestion which goes back to earlier problems and where your problems probably begin and end.

 

[Sean]

The healing process for me seems normal, except much slower than normal.

Initial clotting and sealing of open wounds is okay, but after that healing takes much longer.

Bruising also seems to happen more easily, and also take much longer to fade.

Good possible clue, that needs following up by researchers.

 

[nokmax76]

Further report. As I mentioned in my first post above, I have slowed down on the exertions and DIY that used to cause the odd swelling and bruising that I got. However, about a month after I last posted, I had to engage in an unavoidable building project or fall even further into debt.

The weird thing was, even though I took my time and was careful, I didn't get a single bruise due to the various strenuous activities I had to carry out. I had friends to do the heavy lifting but they weren't around all the time and I had to stretch myself to my physical limit more than once. And yet, no more strange swelling.

I still had (have) the general slow wound healing and PEM nonsense but the odd bruises disappeared like a magic trick. And haven't come back for over a year now. I have had a couple of symptoms go for no apparent reason before but didn't expect this to be one of them as once the physical symptoms start they don't tend to stop.

However, I have been under some severe mental stress for the last four months and I think I've developed an odd offshoot of the bruising problem. It works like this; if I put any part of my body under physical stress, I develop small itchy bumps and blisters in the area concerned. At first I thought it was an allergy because of the itchiness but the links to the bumps and strains became too obvious to ignore.

I haven't been doing any DIY, just hunched over a desk far more than usual doing a lot of typing and admin because I've been fighting a DWP appeal. The appeal is over now and I won it. And I'm no longer having to do so much admin. But the blisters and bumps remain. If I pop the blisters, clear serum runs out. Anyone else had this? Anything that can be done about it?

 

[Seven7]

I get slow healing when my voy D is low

 

[Pyrrhus]

Related discussion:

Skin heals very slowly
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/skin-heals-very-slowly.30851/