When I started working out 6 weeks ago, I went a few days and had trouble with the exercycle where I'd have to stand up every 5 minutes and stretch because my feet kept going to sleep/going numb. The next day I had some really ugly discolorations show up on the backs of my lower thighs and a little on the backs of my upper calves, so I stopped exercising and went to the doctor.

I've started exercising again after seeing him but have avoided the bicycle. He said it was deep bruising caused by cutting off my circulation (see above) but I don't have the best faith in the military doctors here and was wondering if anyone here had ever seen or heard of it before.

I don't have pictures but what it looks like to me is pooled blood deep under the skin surface in almost a waffle (or maybe cellulite?) pattern across the back of my legs.

Also, if it is bruising, any suggestions on something to help it go away faster?

I get this sometimes on a stationary bike or the elliptical machine. I just either stop and do something else, or constantly shift my body so that my foot doesn't fall asleep. It's so annoying, and it's always the same foot. Are your shoes tied too tight? Sometimes it doesn't happen at all. I've never had the bruising though, which sounds like something you don't want to toy with! I would stop immediately if you have that sensation since you are seeing physical effects.

My feet fall asleep if I don't change things up - no matter what exercise I'm doing. I need to vary my speed or incline or whatever over the course of 30-45 mins or yeah, sleepsville.

I've never heard of the bruising though. Are you very fair skinned? Or have you ever suffered from varicose veins? Or does your mom?

I did a quick Google search and didn't really come up with anything. A couple of sites talked about bruising caused by high impact exercise w/out enough support in your shoes ... maybe that's part of it?

I hope you can find out more and let us know!

.

This page http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz...cy/bruises.jsp
says:

And elsewhere I found a forum thread where the person referred to having bruises after exercise frequently, where the situation was resolved by taking less ibuprofen on a regular basis...basically, cutting down on blood-thinners.

And in yet another place, someone referred to getting bruises post-biking, but they eventually went away as his body became accustomed to the exercise. ("Toughened up.")

I'm not sure there's anything you can do to make bruises go away faster--possibly daily hot baths, to bring circulation to the area and promote healing. Or maybe you could look into nutritional strategies for bruising and wound healing. (Eating more whole foods is your best bet if you've got some nutritional deficiencies.)

In my spinning class, the instructor mentioned how if you point your toes down during exercise (particularly on a bike), your toes will go numb. Double check to see how you're keeping your feet on the pedals when you bike.

I actually went and purchased new shoes, specific to my arch and workout. And no, they aren't tied too tightly. As for stopping immediately, I haven't been back on the bicycle since seeing the doctor. He actually advised me to stay off of it and use treadmill/elliptical/stairstepper instead since they don't seem to have the 'going-to-sleep' effect the bicycle does.

I am very fair skinned (see avatar), but do not suffer from varicose veins (neither did my mother and neither do my 2 older sisters). I also did a lot of googling searching for everything from 'discoloration' to 'bruising' and couldn't find anything.

I don't take ibuprofen, aspirin or any type of pain relief very often (maybe once a month?) Actually don't put very much into my body (as in pills) besides my vitamins. Those before the change in WOE and exercise consisted of a multivitamin and green tea complex. Since changing I have added vitamin C, E, B complex & metamusil caplets.

That may be the problem, I tend to point my toes when I'm doing leg extensions of any kind, be it the bicycle extending my legs or a free-form exercise, unless I have a flat surface for them to push against (like the stair stepper does). Guess I need to retrain myself.

Thank you all for your input...I still need to see if there is anything I can do to lessen the discoloration. I haven't worn anything above mid-calf since it happened because it looks awful.