Yes, you can absolutely bruise your pubic bone, which is part of the pelvis, often called a pelvic contusion, and it's a more serious injury than a skin bruise, causing significant pain, swelling, and potential difficulty walking or moving due to blood collecting under the bone's surface, requiring medical attention to rule out fractures.
A bone bruise will feel like a more intense version of a typical surface bruise. A bruise on your skin or in a muscle will feel tender or painful, especially when you touch that spot. A bone bruise usually feels like a dull, throbbing ache that's coming from deeper inside your body.
Symptoms of a bone bruise can include: Pain and tenderness in the injured area. Swelling in the area and soft tissues around it. Hard lump in the area.
Symptoms of a hip or pelvic fracture include significant, sharp pain in the hip or groin and swelling, bruising, and tenderness in the skin at the site of the injury. Depending on the severity of the fracture, a broken bone may prevent you from putting any weight on the affected hip.
While pelvic insufficiency fractures can heal on their own over time, they cause persistent pain in the low back, groin, and buttocks, as well as decreased mobility. Often, they heal as “nonunion” fractures in which the bones don't rejoin properly, inviting future complications.
To treat the pain associated with pelvic injuries, a person can ice the injured area as well as use over-the-counter pain relievers such as Aleve, Tylenol, or ibuprofen. For severe pain, doctors might provide stronger pain medications.
Because a bone bruise isn't readily visible, it can be tempting to ignore the injury as soon as the pain begins to fade. However, this can slow the healing process, which takes at least one to two months. If your bone bruise fails to heal, it's important to follow up with your health care provider.
“It can be easy to mistake a small fracture for a bone bruise, especially after a fall or sports injury. If pain or swelling doesn't improve, it's important to get checked to make sure the bone is healing properly,” Jeremy Kenter, Chief Medical Officer, said.
While rare, it's possible that deep bruising could increase the risk of developing a blood clot. This is more likely in scenarios where someone has deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a clotting disorder, or has experienced severe physical trauma.
It may be localized to the pelvic area or radiate to the lower back, buttocks, thighs, or groin. Some describe it as a deep, throbbing discomfort, while others experience constant, nagging pain or intermittent bursts of sharp pain.
One of the most common bruised cervix symptoms is cramps. While they might be mild for some, others can experience severe cramps that lead to sweating, nausea, and/or vomiting. You might also experience mild pain deep inside your lower abdomen or discomfort in the lower back area.
A puerperal hematoma is an accumulation of blood in a pelvic avascular potential space. Injury that occurs to pelvic vessels can be direct, from episiotomies, vaginal lacerations, and operative deliveries, or indirect due to stretching of the birth canal from labor that is prolonged or macrosomia.
Whereas a bone bruise may feel like a dull ache, bone fracture pain is often sharper. With a bone bruise, you may feel tenderness mostly when you touch the area. With a bone break, the pain is usually more constant. With a bone break, you may notice the bone looking out of place or twisting at an odd angle.
A bone bruise can be seen only on an MRI scan. But it can be diagnosed and treated without an MRI scan. Your healthcare provider may treat your bone bruise with rest, ice, pain medicines, and a brace to prevent the bone from moving. In rare cases, a bone bruise may cause a complication called avascular necrosis.
A sacral stress fracture is a hairline crack in the pelvic bone. This type of fracture is relatively uncommon but is usually caused by repetitive stress rather than a single accident. It usually affects the bottom of the pelvis, but can affect the front joint between the two pelvic bones.
Diagnosing a bone bruise
Your provider will examine the injured area to check for pain, bruising, and swelling. After the exam, your provider may be able to tell if you have a bone bruise. A bone bruise doesn't show up on an X-ray. But you may be given an X-ray to rule out a bone fracture.
Understanding Common Bone Fracture Symptoms
At first, you might barely notice the pain from a stress fracture. But it tends to become worse if you do more of an activity that puts stress on the cracked bone. The tender feeling often starts at a certain spot and gets better during rest. You also might have swelling around the painful area.
You may not feel any pain, so this is called a “silent fracture”, but you may notice that you have lost height. Spinal fractures are more common than we realise with only about 30% diagnosed.
A hairline fracture, also known as a stress fracture, is any of your bones receiving a small crack, or even an acute bruise. The damage may be instant but mostly occurs over time, due to repetitive tasks where the injury first appeared.
Osteitis pubis is inflammation in the joint between your left and right pubic bones (your pubic symphysis). It causes pain and swelling in your groin or lower abdomen. Osteitis pubis is a type of symphysis pubis dysfunction that's usually caused by repetitively using your hips, pelvis and groin.
It includes:
The main symptom of a pelvic fracture is pain in the groin, hip or lower back, which may get worse when walking or moving the legs. Other symptoms may include: Abdominal pain. Numbness or tingling in the groin or legs.