The main thing is to stay in front of it. If the discoloration sets in log term from ongoing bruising it can become near-permanent staining, as you’ve learned. Almost of none of the following will help with hemosiderin staining, which is the long term discoloration that comes from accumulated, aging blood products in the skin.
I’ve found a few things are very helpful for prevention:
Firegoat rolls, as mentioned.
Be certain you are not taking any medications or supplements that interfere with clotting or platelet function. NSAIDs are a major category, but there are many so do your research.
Use soft clamping as an alternate to some of your hard clamping days since it results in essentially no discoloration (at least for me). You can look it up, but you use silicone toe shields stacked on each other at the base. Not as effective as hard clamping, but still useful.
Use red light therapy. Heat also helps clear acute discoloration to some extent.
Interestingly I’ve found using heat while pumping has cleared some transient discoloration from petechiae, probably because it pulls blood into the skin and once the vacuum is released flushes those capillaries, so there is a lot of turnover of lymph and blood from pumping, especially if you do shorter intervals of 1-5 minutes (this is just a theory, so not scientific). Like I said, I’ve had petechiae that were cleared by this, and it might work for more intense discoloration, as long as the discoloration is acute and not long standing. Might be worth a try for ongoing skin maintenance, in addition to other benefits. Just work your way up from a low pressure at first, since pumping can also cause discoloration if the skin isn’t conditioned.
Finally I’ve found that taking a supplement called serrapeptase, which does not interfere with clotting but breaks down the products of clotting on a microscopic level, helps reverse/prevent acute discoloration, at least the kind that leads to long term changes. I take it as directed on the bottle, first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Supposedly it is also good for inflammation and for reversing/preventing atherosclerosis, so might even have some general health benefits.
Some people say topical arnica cream is also helpful for bruising, but I’ve not found it to be noticeably beneficial.
There are some threads about using various topical treatments to remove staining using chemical peel type stuff, or iodine, or others. I’ve not had to try any of these because I’ve not had any long term issues, but you might want to look around for those to see if anything seems like something you’d like to be aware of in case things return to their previous state.
