I had a little hangnail on my right index finger get outrageously infected once. One day, it was your everyday ordinary hangnail, a little red and somewhat bothersome, and the next morning the finger was extremely painful and swollen to twice its size. That morning was a Sunday, naturally, and I’m too cheap to visit an emergency room for a glorified hangnail, so I lanced it myself with a sterilized needle. I got just a little pus out of it at first, so I squeezed it a little and an actual chunk of green stuff popped out of the wound. That was bad enough, but the smell of the pus that followed was horrible, and there was a lot of it.
I drained it, put a hot compress on it, then drained it some more, squeezed heavy-duty antibiotic ointment on it, and bandaged it. It took almost a week, but it healed fine.
Nice to see you, Broomstick. I’ve been off-boards awhile, and just returned. Re-reading that threade, I saw a lot of “Guest” designations under lots of familiar names.
I got what turned out to be a staph infection in my left nipple a few years ago. It was when I was doing my Open Water qualification for SCUBA, so I was in and out of a wetsuit all day for three days.
My nipple got sore, I didn’t think much of it. Then it got really sore. Then it turned a bright cherry red and HURT! Moreover, I noticed a red line trailing off from the nipple and across about three inches of my breast, heading for my armpit. Off to the doctor I went, and though she was calm, she was also very intense about checking me out and immediately put me on aggressive, horse-sized oral antibiotics. Cleared it up nicely, but the nipple turned beige and stayed that way, so the girls don’t match up anymore. Ah, well.
Not me, but my FIL (paralyzed from the nipples down) had a bruise from constantly ( and not realizing) brushing up against a knobby thingie in his Van as he transfered from wheelchair to drivers seat ( gear shift knob, I think,the one that controls the foot pedals.)
Well, after years of doing this and never breaking the knob, the bruise basically became like a bedsore despite the fact that my MIL takes meticulous care of him.
The bedsore would not heal and was located on a pressure point of his bum.
After years of this thing not getting better and seemingly not getting worse and countless doctors appointments to a GP (whom they’ve since stopped going to do to his incompetence.) his bedsore looked like a second asshole. His GP said, " It will never heal and it doesn’t look so bad." (I would have run out of the office as fast as I could after that and by the fact that the doctor never had my FIL transfer out of his chair onto a table to get a better look at it. Just had him lean forward and drop trou, which is harder than a transfer with him.)
My inlaws just accepted the situation as that generation does of, “Well these things happen.” When this attitude shows up, it puts Mr. Ujest into Defcon 5.
Mr. Ujest ended up getting the name of a trauma surgeon, got him in for an appointment ASAP and the guy scheduled him that week for an emergency surgery. That week.
Essentially the wound ( which is what it was by this time) was so infected that my FIL would have been screaming and writhing in pain had he been able to feel it. He was probably days away from a VERY serious situation and probably death.
A low level fever that FIL hadn’t realized ( sweats) had been dogging him for a while. He hadn’t started acting his normal loopyness when a fever hits him that is a sign something isn’t right with things downstairs.
The doctor cleaned out the wound by scraping the bone and putting excess muscle ( or maybe just fat) from somewhere else on FIL’s body into the boo boo. and then to heal it, would (daily) rip off a peice of medical tape on it to bring blood up into the wound before patching it again this made it heal faster with circulation. Good thing FIL couldn’t feel anything and my MIL said it was kinda fun doing that part. (and a good thing he didn’t have a hairy posterior.)
I popped a zit as normal. The next morning, I woke up with a swelling the exact size of half of a softball on my cheeks with the glands on that same side of the body all swelled up & painful. It was horrible, worse than when I had my wisdom teeth out. I recognized I was in deep trouble, but I didn’t go to the ER… because I’d never stand down the humilation of “umm… well… I popped a pimple… and…”. So I did self-surgery with a well-sterlized knife and Bactarin. Yes, it HURT–but I got a very high pain tolerance when I knew that my life depended on it. These infections are nothing to joke about–people regularly die from them (and, yes, I should’ve gone to the ER in the first place). By the end of the day, the swelling was 90% down.
One of Calvin Coolidge’s sons died from blood poisoning after he played tennis and got a blister on his toe. It became infected and was dead within a few days.
The brother of our church died when he was a child because he had a blister and, the prevailing thought was at the time, he got an infection and the dye from his red socks contributed to a very bad thing. His name was Stanislaus. Which was the name Fr. Prus ( Rhymes with Moose) preferred over his own ( Edward.)
Of all the things I learned in 12 years of catholic schooling, this is the only thing I recall exactly, prefectly and with total clarity from all the classes, homework and discussion. Why is that?
Shirley, you absolutely, positively, have to e-mail me. That’s the second person you have mentioned that we know in common (Fr. Ed Prus, the first was Anne and Rod Capps). I e-mailed you about the first one, but it must have slipped into a balck hole.
I had an abcess/cyst on my right arm a couple of years ago. I went to see the doc, she gave me oral antibiotcs for 10 days. I came back before the ten days were up, though, because the infection was getting worse. She took one look at my arm and got me a hospital bed that day. I was in the hospital for a little over a week, and after a couple of days I had a PICC line put in. I was sent home, and had a home health care nurse give me IV antibiotics every day for a while. This amused the cats greatly. I had that line in me for a month or so, I think. I hated that thing.
Incidentally, a tomcat’s mate is a queen. Just thought I should mention that.
Personally, I don’t think people are stubborn enough about going to the doctor. Seems like people going running off to doc the second they get a little booboo, or are feeling a little blue (but, gee, isn’t that nice that we all share the cost equally).
That said, an infection IS something that you need to go to a doctor for. I just don’t think you need to see someone before it gets to that point, even for large cuts and abrasions.
FWIW, I’ve never had a problematic infection that I know of. I let all my cuts “air heal” even though I accept that they might heal quicker with band aids. Recently, I had a huge case of road rash. My ass abrasion was seeping through my jeans. It healed up in due time.
I’ve always felt like my cuts get a little infected though. They don’t just heal. The get a little red and puffy, then it all goes away.