<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> More responses: * Too much vitamin C (as with too much aspirin) can thin the blood and cause bruising. Vitamin C combined with bioflavenoids can avoid this problem as bioflavenoids help strengthen the wall of the small blood vessels called capillaries. A vitamin K deficiency can also cause thinning of the blood and lead to bruising among other problems. Vitamin K is manufactured in the human gut in sufficient quantities in 'normal' people. We celiacs often have difficulties making enough vitamin K due to the intestinal damage caused by CD. Solution: remain gluten-free and make sure you get enough beta-carotene in your diet (from yellow/orange vegetables, dark green leafy vegetables, etc.) to allow your body to make vitamin K. vitamin K supplements are ineffective due to the acid in the stomach which destroys the vitamin K before your body can use it. I was advised to get my vitamin K from food sources and let my body do the work. It took a lots of carrots, dark squash, spinach, kale, etc. but it finally worked. * I bruise very easily and was told this was due to low hemoglobin (due to iron deficiency) levels in the blood. * I've read up on it, and unless you have hemophelia or maybe luekemia, then the typical reasons for bruising easily is one of 4 things: Your getting older, so your skin's fatty layer is thinning-allowing you to bruise ( I ruled this out for myself, as I'm only 23), or you are deficient in vitamins C,K, or b12 ( I have a problem blaming this, too because I get tons of broccoli, leafy greens and fruits). So, my research didn't exactly help my situation...but I don't think ruling out bruising as a celiac by-product is out of the question. * Bruising is always one of the first symptoms I get when I go off my diet. It is very common among Celiacs. It is caused from a lack of vitamin K. * I started eating gluten free and adding more foods with viatmin K and I no longer have problems. Also my physician said not to take the vitamin over the counter because it could cause clotting, just to eat more foods with K. * Usually when I ingest gluten (accidentally) is when bruise marks show up on my thighs and calfs. * I had this problem as I was being diagnosed. Seems it was a vitamin K deficiency -- for blood clotting. The small veins just under the skin were breaking and unable to heal quickly. ease up on the vitamin C which could be thinning your blood. * Could be that you need calcium. * Bruising can be caused by a shortage of any of the multitude of proteins (Factor VII, Factor VIII, etc) or of Vitamin K as well as some drugs (aspirin or ibuprofen taken regularly for arthritis, say). * Most likely culprit is aspirin which when taken daily can affect coagulation by altering blood platelet function. It takes about 12 days of daily aspirin before the easy bruising shows up. Other common causes are Vitamin E, ginko biloba, and garlic pills. [respondent is an MD] * according to a doctor at the last csa meeting in denver, bruising is a main symptom of celiac.... * from chapter 19 on Vitamin K in "Modern Nutrition, 8th edition" edited by Maurice Shils: "Depression of the vitamin K-dependent coagulation factors is frequently found in the malabsorption syndromes and in other gastrointestinal disorders (e.g cystic fibrosis, sprue, celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, regional ileitis, and short bowel syndrome)...." Looking in Rosenfeld's book "Symptoms," under Bruising, I do see this: "If you've begun to bleed easily under the skin and also develop jaundice, it's probably due to liver disease - the liver is not making enough vitamin K to clot your blood properly." Vitamin C deficiency could certainly be a cause of bruising as I see that "the true hallmark of scurvy in the adult is perifollicular hemorrhages and perifollicular hyperkeratosis, most common on the anterior aspect of the thorax, forearms, thighs and legs and on the anterior abdominal walls." (Shils, p. 915). * There is an autoimmune platelet condition called ITP. Your body reacts to its own platelets and kills them off, leaving you with a low platelet count - and , often, bruising. Since we celiacs are susceptible to other autoimmune diseases, I would check it out. * if you are following the gluten-free diet and the bruising hasn't quit, yet, then consider giving up dairy and soy (maybe the whole legume family?), and see if it goes away. Then if that doesn't do it, get rid of parasites, including funguses (yeast). All these things can cause the same damage to the lining of the intestine as does wheat gluten. * Have you thought about lupus, rather than celiac being the cause? * I had a similar bruising problem and started taking a B Complex everyday in addition to my multivitamin and the bruising stopped.