13 yr old son has a series of brown bruises on his back, right along his spine. Any idea on what cause is?

Question

Son isn't athletic or playing any sports where injury could be caused. I'm worried that it might be some early sign of cancer.

Answer 1

Just get it checked out by a doctor. This article says bruises turn brown by about the 8 th day after injuries...and it has a lot of other information that is interesting on the causes of bruises including vitamin K deficiency (not eating dark green leafy vegetables or vitamins), low platelets (liver damage?), medication reactions (aspirin, naprosyn, motrin) , anti-coagulant therapy (coumadin), autoimmune diseases, hereditary bleeding disorders (i.e. hemophilia), alcoholism (malnutrition and liver damage), drug addiction (i.e. methametamine causes nasty sores from malnutrition and where they pick at themselves constantly) and AIDS (kaposi's sarcoma )...

http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/bruises

here is a picture of melanoma skin cancer (there is also squamous cell skin cancer and basal cell, but this is probably more of the color you refer to)

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3Dybr_sbc%26p%3Dskin%2520cancer%2520types%26fr2%3Dtab-web&w=150&h=222&imgurl=www.doctorabergel.com%2Fmedia%2Fprocedural_imgs%2Fskin3.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.doctorabergel.com%2Fdermatology%2Fskin_cancer.html&size=22.7kB&name=skin3.jpg&p=skin+cancer+types&type=jpeg&no=18&tt=338&oid=7f0f3c8002b720f0&ei=UTF-8

Answer 2

OK, this is what I think it might be but consult your doc too.
When my daughter was younger she went running outside, hit the front concrete porch, lost her footing and went down the concrete stairs on her back. She had bruises on her spine after that. It was very painful of course. I have also fallen on the stairs twice, we're both klutzes. So ask him if he fell down some stairs somewhere. Hopefully, he wasn't doing stunts, but there is so much on tv today, that it wouldn't surprise me. Kids don't pay attention too much at that age they're always in a hurry, or maybe he was skateboarding or something down stairs.

Answer 3

I doubt this is skin cancer, does he lay on his back on a hard surface a lot? The bruises could be from the pressure of his spinal bones on the skin.

Answer 4

Unexplained bruising should always be investigated by a doctor - it's probably nothing but you should get it checked just in case.

Answer 5

something bit your back, then u might have a reaction.

i dont think its cancer, go check up with a dotor jsut to treat it

Answer 6

external skin allergy , may be bed bug or bad linen