This One Aspirin a Day Thing.....

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See that? Have you ever had an EKG, where they stick those little sticky things on you so they can connect the probes and get the EKG? One of those little sticky things is what caused that. And no, they didn't put it on my leg with a sledgehammer. I'm sure this is something that a number of people who are racing toward the Social Security retirement age have encountered: you are starting to bruise more easily. It's a natural process of aging, according to the medical experts (that's places like the Mayo Clinic, not "Fred's Pool Hall and Medical Advice"). Our skin gets thinner, the capillaries get more sensitive, and BANG! What we used to be able to take without flinching suddenly puts a lovely shade of purple on our skin. There are other factors, too: one of the common "over-the-counter" regimens for older individuals is one baby aspirin (81 mg) a day. That thins the blood. It also makes you more susceptible to easy bruising. Then there are other medications that can, ahem, "help" the bruising to happen. I take a steroid inhaler for asthma. While "they" assure me that the medication is a great treatment because the steroids stay in the lungs, I can't help but think a little bit of it seeps out into the bloodstream. Steroids are one of the major contributors to easy bruising. My dear mother of blessed memory could almost look at her skin and bruise it because of the prednisone she had to take for her emphysema. I guess it's one of those things you learn to live with, like everything else that happens as you get older. It's a little disheartening when it begins to happen ("how did I do that to myself????"), and you might have to convince the doctor that you are NOT being physically abused by a caretaker.