Gray Skin Causes and Treatment

Pallor, or pale skin, and grayish or blue skin are a result of a lack of oxygenated blood. Your blood carries oxygen around your body, and when this is disrupted, you see a discoloration.

The disruption may be to the flow of blood itself, which produces paleness or a gray tint to skin tone. When you experience a lack of oxygen, your blood may still be flowing, but it changes color. This causes your skin to become blue or gray in color.

A gray, pale, or bluish tint to the skin can be an indicator of one or more health problems. In general, pallor results from insufficient oxygen, which can be caused by many different things.

Some situations in which your skin turns pale are medical emergencies — for instance, if you're choking or can't breathe. The symptom could also be a result of something that doesn't constitute an emergency. In other instances, a grayish tint is a characteristic of a chronic or late-stage disease, such as cancer.

The appropriate course of treatment and the outlook depends on the situation and what is causing skin discoloration.

When someone is in the late stages of a disease or organ failure, blood flow slows and produces a gray pallor. This includes:

• late stage chronic kidney disease, or renal failure
• late stage, terminal cancer
• congestive heart failure
• hemochromatosis, or iron storage disease

Some conditions or chronic diseases can produce pallor or a bluish skin color because of inadequate blood flow or lack of oxygen in the body. Some are emergencies and may require immediate medical treatment, while others can be treated, but aren't immediately life-threatening:

• choking on a foreign object, which requires emergency care
• anemia
• aspiration pneumonia
• chronic infections, such as pulmonary tuberculosis
• heart disease
• emphysema
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

If you see someone with pale, bluish, or gray skin who seems to be distressed, it could be a medical emergency. Other signs of an emergency include difficulty breathing, an inability to talk, lips and nails turning blue, and loss of consciousness. If you think someone is choking or can't breathe, call 911 and get medical help right away.