Woke up yesterday with a swollen thigh?

Question

hey guys, i woke up yesterday morning, and my left thigh was swollen, and there's this HUGE (although light) bruise that covers about.. i'd say 1/3 of my thigh.
it's stiff, it hurts, and it's somewhat a numbing feeling, and it's really painful when i climb the stairs or go down the stairs.

i have no idea what this could be, any ideas?

Answer 1

If there is pain it is possible you have cellulitis. If you did not have any obvious injury to cause this then you need to see a Dr and find out what is going on. Cellulitis moves quickly and you don't want it getting out of control. If this is the case you will need antibiotics so see the Dr now. good luck

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000855.htm

Answer 2

Nearly 20 years ago I had some pain in my thigh on the left side where it felt like I had pulled a muscle. The pain was so bad that I would have a burning, so bad that it would make me itch a lot, a lot to scratch at. I went to my dr about and they gave me muscle relaxers to try. Several of them I had problems with (and yes, I was a teenager at the time this happened). I didn't have the stiffness and numbing feeling in that area like you do but I remember that with the pain issue I did have I found that walking up and down stairs could be problematic for me.

So over the next several months, kept trying muscle relaxers, none of which did much good. The primary care dr decided that I should go see an orthopedic surgeon to check my knee to see if that had something to do with it. He did a bone scan (a nuclear medicine procedure where they insert a special dye to show up things especially abnormalities) after doing some regular x-rays. They found a dark spot on my left knee. The dr thought it was a tumor so he wanted me to go to the University of Florida to see if there drs could help. Turns out that while there they found that my kneecaps were off their track.

After some time I finally got sent to a rheumatologist who ran some tests and it turns out my problem was osteoarthritis.

And yes, the osteoarthritis is in not just my left knee but my entire left leg and foot. And I also have some issues with the arthritis in my right knee. How I knew that was because of when I got the same symptoms as I did in the time before I was diagnosed with the osteoarthritis in my left leg and knee.

I would recommend starting with your primary care physician if you have an insurance plan that requires it and see about trying to get to a rheumatologist as they are the experts at treating the different forms of arthritis such as osteoarthritis.

By the way I was 19 when I was diagnosed with the osteoarthritis. I'm now 35 years old. Some drs don't want to believe that a 19 year old person can get osteoarthritis. Some of them thought my problem was either rheumatoid arthritis or Lupus because of a situation I had occur at age 21.