Infectious Disease

Yeah, what he said. And take probiotics so your gut doesn't get all screwed up from the anitbiotics. It happened to me and I still get food reactions.

 

wetsuit aids...

 

Straight up, MRSA. I got hospitalized back in February for 5 days because of it. I honestly thought it was a pimple on my abdomen. Popped that sucker and squeezed it out, cleaned her with hydrogen peroxide. Bad idea.

Next day had a fever and didn't know what was going on and that sucker grew to like the size of an orange. Considering the symptoms and proximity to "my junx", I went to the doctor's office. She gave me antibiotics, painkillers and lanced that thing. She said if it didn't "get better within 24 hours, go to the emergency room immediately!" It was not known if this was MRSA at the time.

Got home, sleeping under a pile of blankets and burning up like crazy. Girlfriend comes by, takes one look at me and we are off to the hospital. It was taken care of, but you are treated like you're radioactive and hospitals are not cheap. Don't know if there is a God, gods or what since I am a human, but I will say this, Thank God for Health Insurance.

Got it the first time (pre-surf life) from playing a show I was drumming for. Hit my hand a lot on the snare. I blame it on the smoke n juice but I digress. My left hand was bloody as hell. I put on a glove. Bad idea. MRSA

Had a fever the next day. Told everyone I would be meeting up to drink within a couple of hours. Hospital.

 

You guys are all boils and disease. I'm taking a shower after I come on here every time now.

 

Scenario: a surfer loses his leg below the knee to a dirty, smelly, disgusting staph infection. Is that the story he shares at the bar, or does he go with "my leg currently resides inside the belly of a 17ft great white"?

What would YOU do?

 

Yes, back in 2003 or 04, when I had only been there for a year or so, I surfed after a heavy rain after being advised not too. after a few weeks, I couldnt walk and had a big red mark. A scab surfaced and eventually came off in the shower, and I have a dime sized wide hole in my leg that was about 2 inches deep. I could see my muscles... I had to take al;l kinds of anti-biotics and was out of the water for a month...

The doctor told me that it was most likely an in-grown hair that and the dirty water got in through the wetsuit and into the ingrown hair... Not 100% sure, but that Hawaiian nurse told me that he had seen that many times from wetsuits...

so yes.

 

Although not usually advisable, let you suit hang inside out outside in the sun for an afternoon. Plus, I'm not sure how much it takes but it doesn't take much bleach in a tub of water to get rid of the nasty stuff.

 

I had the same thing once, but it was herpes. And it was on my wiener. I got it from having unprotected sex with a hooker. Exactly the same situation you're in

 

I would be very careful if you think you have staph. A guy I work with was hospitalized for 7 months from a staph infection which got into his blood.

my wetsuit or the water I was in once made my skin freak the f out so I would agree on that a wetsuit could harbor some type of bacteria

 

It wasn't your wetsuit, boo-boo. It was your latex dummy getting you some payback for all that anal rape you've been hitting it with.

 

Sounds like a staph infex. Might look like it's fading, but it could be smoldering waiting to flare again. Go see the doc. Don't put back on that suit til you know what you're dealing with. Staph can kill.

Last year there was news about some high school team that was getting staph from their equipment. It was bad.

 

This sounds like cellulitis, which is a skin infection that reaches a few layers deep and just reaches the tissue underneath the skin. Most commonly it's caused by strep or staph. Staph usually is the one that produces more pus, strep will cause a hot red swelling with tense skin. Both bacteria live on your skin normally, and they usually don't do much besides take up space and prevent more dangerous bacteria from moving in. Sometimes they can cause problems when there's a small break in your skin (probably wouldn't even notice it, and friction from a wetsuit can cause a small break) and then maybe they'll cause an infection like the one you described.

Don't destroy your wetsuit, and definitely don't wash it in bleach if you want to wear it again. It's easy to kill bacteria on a surface, just put some soap on it and let it soak in a tub, inside it out and let it dry. Most probably the bacteria causing this is living on your knee, not your wetsuit's knee.

The most common bacteria causing this are staph and strep, but there are some other bacteria that are known to cause cellulitis after soaking in sea water or fresh water. They're Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Aeromonas hydrophila, and Vibrio vulnificus. Pseudomonas at least can be much more serious (and maybe was the thing that caused a black hole in another poster's leg), and your infection sounds more classic, so it might have been just strep or staph.

Finally, I'm not sure which antibiotic is the most optimal for your cellulitis. If it cleared with cipro, but then came back, you might want to switch antibiotics. Cipro isn't the first line of antibiotics used for cellulitis, so if it's still there, or gone but comes back a third time I would go to the doctor to get the right one for the job. Also, like people have already said on here, don't wait to go to the doctor if it comes up again on your knee because it has the potential to get complicated. It's so much easier to treat at the beginning, and if you wait until you get a fever from it, they might try and admit you to the hospital for IV antibiotics, which is not something you're going to want to pay for out of pocket.

 

nice cc, what do you do?

 

You need bacterium DS. Oral antibiotic

trash suit

 

Coming to the SI Forum for medical advice regarding a possible life-threatening infection is, perhaps, not your best bet to ensure survivability.

 

Yankee, what are you doing up at 4:00 am?

 

not especially, beyond the fact that today, at 67 years of age, he still one of the most singularly healthy human beings i have ever encountered. the man just does not get sick. colds bounce off him & the flu just give him a case of the sniffles.

we were in panama for a surf trip when the infection began in a wound he got from hitting the reef. we attacked it aggressively w/ prescription anti-biotic cream & kept it dry & covered when he was out of the water. that seemed to keep it at bay for the remainder of the trip, but it flared back up w/ a vengeance when we got home & ate all the cartilage in the joint. he ended up landing in the hospital for a few days & taking antibiotics for months, then once the infection was fully licked some funky injections to keep the knee lubricated while he strengthened his leg muscles back up enough to under go the replacement procedure.

moral of the story, it might be getting better, but i'd still recommend going to see your dr. MRSA sucks.

 

I don't know, Billy!

Actually, a really long week toasted me so I crashed at 730pm & was wide awake in the wee hours; what better place to while away the pre-dawn mists than on the magical, mystical SI Forum.

 

Whoa. Helluva story. Take heed, all.