Arm hurts 3 weeks after giving blood
Discussion
Bit of an odd one this and the two things may not be related. First some background.
I gave blood during the last week of August. I think it was my 5th time and I'd never had any issues before. After the needle went into my arms it started to ache further up in the bicep. This continued to get worse to the point I couldn't take opening and closing my hand. Just as I was about to call the nurse over I'd thankfully given enough. I mentioned the pain to the nurse who suggested they may have quite litterally hit a nerve and just to watch for an excessive bruising or proper loss of sensation.
I was sent on my way in the usual manner with no unusual bleeding or bruising at the puncture site but the ache in my bicep persisted with a little bit of a tingling sensation /numbness. The latter subsides but the pain kept coming back in my bicep when lugging suitcases around for our holiday in Cornwall the next day. A week later it had gone.
Fast forward to this week and, having been quite cautious, I made a return to doing some bicep curls (equal mass dumbbell in each hand) in the gym on Tuesday. I hadn't done any in ages so I was expecting some DOMS and received a nice dose in both arms. Since then my right arms seems to be getting worse while the left fades back to normal. It looks like there could be a little bruising deep down too. It's definitely in exactly the same spot as the pain post-blood donation. Has anyone experienced anything similar giving blood or does anyone have any thoughts on what I may have done to it?
I gave blood during the last week of August. I think it was my 5th time and I'd never had any issues before. After the needle went into my arms it started to ache further up in the bicep. This continued to get worse to the point I couldn't take opening and closing my hand. Just as I was about to call the nurse over I'd thankfully given enough. I mentioned the pain to the nurse who suggested they may have quite litterally hit a nerve and just to watch for an excessive bruising or proper loss of sensation.
I was sent on my way in the usual manner with no unusual bleeding or bruising at the puncture site but the ache in my bicep persisted with a little bit of a tingling sensation /numbness. The latter subsides but the pain kept coming back in my bicep when lugging suitcases around for our holiday in Cornwall the next day. A week later it had gone.
Fast forward to this week and, having been quite cautious, I made a return to doing some bicep curls (equal mass dumbbell in each hand) in the gym on Tuesday. I hadn't done any in ages so I was expecting some DOMS and received a nice dose in both arms. Since then my right arms seems to be getting worse while the left fades back to normal. It looks like there could be a little bruising deep down too. It's definitely in exactly the same spot as the pain post-blood donation. Has anyone experienced anything similar giving blood or does anyone have any thoughts on what I may have done to it?
I don't bruise that easily and I once did bruise very severely when giving blood for a blood test. I think the nurse just put it in somehow a bad position. It didn't hurt at the time but afterwards the bruise looked like I'd been in a car-crash or whatever - it was quite bad. Probably took a month to go back to normal so your's is probably normal, it will just take another couple of weeks to be completely healed. I wouldn't worry about it yet.
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