Labs for workup of easy bleeding or bruising

What to check depends on how much and where you're bleeding.

Intro

The lab workup of bleeding diathesis (easy bleeding/bruising) depends a bit on where and how much bleeding is occurring.

In general, it’s pretty standard to check a CBC (to look at platelets), INR (to look at the extrinsic clotting cascade) and aPTT (to look at the intrinsic clotting cascade).

This said, there are *many* more tests that can be run — the following should point you in the right direction for six of the more common scenarios.

1. Severe easy bleeding. This is when a person has had problems with bleeding that has required trips to the ED or hospital, and hopefully has been worked up already. If the bleeding has involved joints or muscles, a clotting cascade disorder would be suspected, and initial screening would be an INR and aPTT. If you have this, go see a hematologist. 

2. Bleeding involving mucosal tissues (gums while brushing teeth, nosebleeds).

   If platelets are normal normal, in isolation, this most suggests a condition called