Due to a bad case of Staph infection on my right leg.
I have never seen something spread so quickly and so far in just a few days. Woke up Monday before last with a bad headache (never get headaches) sore back muscles, and chills that lasted over an hour. Had a minor irritation on my upper thigh that looked like a spider bite but I figured I had COVID so I set up a test that same day.
By that night the irritation had spread about 4 inches to above my knee but I did not think much of it. The next day I got negative results back for the COVID test and the irritation in m leg was below the knee now. Went to ER and they did an Ultrasound for blood clots that came back negative but my blood work had high levels of white blood cells. So they IV'ed some strong antibiotics and told me to watch it closely. The next day it was all the way down to my ankles and covered the back of my calf. It also started oozing at this point from multiples areas on my lower leg. They admitted me to the hospital at this point and pounded it with antibiotics
At its worse, it covered about 35% of my leg and was excruciating in its pain. I have never seen in my life something that spread and became that bad in such little time.
Just a heads up, Do not mess around with anything you think is a possible skin infection. I was lucky in that it was surface only and did not develop any abscesses but this was seriously scary shit. Look your skin over and don't ignore any cuts or scratches
Yeah they pounded me with that via IV and I am taking it at home as we speak
No worries, Ronnie?
Too much or even redundant medical info isn't so much a burden as a necessity, in THIS country anyway...
When I had a minor skin infection several months ago, I had no medical insurance here so paid my way into a local urgent care clinic, one linked to CVS. I had already photoed it and sent pictures and a description of its two-three day history to my PC physician in Israel, and he gave me a prescription of a high oral dose of Ciproflaxin or something rather high grade, for oral antibiotic.
But of course the pharmacy won't fulfill a scrip from a foreign doc, so I went to the clinic nurse. She would not approve the same antibiotic, and gave me IIRC Amoxicillin instead at 500 (mg?) twice daily for a week.
It worked fine after several days, but my personal doc was pissed off about the system here.
I was lucky it WASN'T MRSA, but rather a more mundane Staph strain.
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Had MRSA in an incision I needed for compartment syndrome. Scary as shit. Did they end up giving you vancomycin ? That finally worked. Made me itch like crazy. Such a tough experience. I am glad you are through it!
Yeah they pounded me with that via IV and I am taking it at home as we speak
Scared the shit out of me at first. There’s a specific side effect of
IV vancomycin called “Red Man Syndrome”. It happened to me and I thought I was having anaphylaxis and man, it was a capper on a bad week. Calmed down with a fuckton of Benadryl though. And then it finally got rid of the infection. Glad you are through the worst!
Red Man Syndrome - ( New Window )
The top first 3 picks are today.
I am still amazed at how it went from barely there to this sucks so quickly.
I don't think you need a P-word, but if so let me know
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Jeez montana, that looks incredibly painful. I am so glad it's not MRSA or vancomycin resistant especially. Best to you, DQ
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The bottom right pic was the morning of the 2nd day. The middle pic in 2nd row was the worse of it and was the morning of day 4
The top first 3 picks are today.
I am still amazed at how it went from barely there to this sucks so quickly.
I don't think you need a P-word, but if so let me know
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Jeez montana, that looks incredibly painful. I am so glad it's not MRSA or vancomycin resistant especially. Best to you, DQ
It sucks DQ.
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What did they give you to kill off the infection? How quickly did it work for you?
They have me on Linezolid, Vancomycin, Amoxicillin now at home, all oral
During the Hospital stay, they pounded it with Vancomycin, Linezolid, and Oritavancin via IV,
They also gave me Gabapentin for nerve pain because I would get these shooting explosions of pain every couple of minutes that would radiate up the whole leg. The pain was so bad at one point that they were giving me Dilaudid every 4 hours for 2 days, then dropped it down to Percocet.
I'm going to upload some pics from when it was at its peak to photobucket tomorrow
Thanks. Late getting back to this, but good to know. Man, they really piled it into you! But it worked. The pain reliever info is especially useful -- sorry it took so long to give you relief. Perco, two decades ago after an open procedure to repair my aorta, which was pretty painful afterwards for weeks, worked for me. Addiction is to be feared, so one has to watch how much and how often one is using it. Still take Gabapentin after all these years for the nerve pain, which sort of stayed with me.
\It's weird how it always seems to start on the upper legs. When I first met my Dr she even asked if it was an irritation on my upper leg because it's such a common starting point
Yes, it started as a little white head pimple that looked like a spider bite and three days later he was in the ER.
The upper leg seems to be very common as a starting point
I'm not sure this will help but I also have tried to avoid taking any antiobiotics since I had it.