A close friend and colleague of mine who's an avid fitness buff just spent a week in the hospital fighting Cellulitis.

Before that happened to him, I never even knew there was such a thing.

This is how bad it got, how quickly. Saturday evening he noticed something on his thumb. A small swollen area. Said it looked like maybe a sliver or something. Went to urgent care Sunday, when it got worse and more painful. Cutting to the chase: By Monday evening we was in the hospital and in so much pain he can't remember getting into a fist fight with orderlies when they tried to immobilize him to scan his hand. (And that was with heavy pain killers.)

Luckily he responded to the antibiotics and is on the mend. Apparently one can lose body parts or even die from these infections. Apparently it's not particularly uncommon, either. There were three other people with the same condition wherever they had him in the hospital.

In reviewing with doctors all the possible ways he could have contracted this, the only "hit" was on him having gone to the gym that day. (Yes, gym was notified.)

I've just taken delivery of full-finger workout gloves from AP. Going forward: When doing weight training I'll be wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts year round, rather than in just cold weather.

Happens a lot with cat bites or scratches.

My Dad got it a few times, freaking nasty.

Knew many guys who had that in boot camp. It was the first time I ever heard of it. Outside of that I have rarely heard of it.

One of my former employees had it a week or so ago. Both legs below the knees. The doctors didn't know what caused it.

I’ve had it twice over the years, both times on my big toe.

Absolutely not to be dismissed, progresses fast and can do lots of damage.

And not necessarily related or more prevalent for gym rats, lord knows I’ve never been one.

Glad to hear he is doing better. Luckily it sounds like MRSA was not involved.

I am one of those guys that uses an antiseptic wipe for my hands and grocery cart handle when I go to the store. I use quite a bit of Purell too.

A bacterial skin infection that can be had many places. The gym is possible but so are hundreds others.
Yup it can be pretty nasty.

I had an unfriendly meeting with a beehive one time and got stung upward of 50+ times.
2 days later 7 looked like dark purple hockey pucks, I was nauseated, sweaty, and just felt akward.
Put me on some steroids and antibiotics and cleared up in a few days.

I got it at an IV site in the hospital once. Nasty stuff. Took a long course of antibiotics to clear it up

I had it about 2 months ago. Felt tired after golf one day and laid down to take nap at 3-PM. Woke up 18 hours later and had 102 fever. I thought I had a viral thing and stayed in bed. The third day, I noticed my right leg had red splotches below the knee and went to ER. Dr. put me on 10 day course of anti-biotics and I gradually got better. Don't know what caused it but do not want it again (but I did lose 8 pounds).

Definitely nasty stuff. Very common to hear of in the medical field.

I had cellulitis from going through some nasty, swampy water with a cut on my knee. I knew what it was, and was treated immediately with antibiotics, and it still spread to my entire leg, and I was laid up for over a week. Glad your friend is ok, because it’s nasty stuff and I can’t imagine what would happen if it were left untreated.

I have a friend here at my house now I demanded he stay with me until he's healed.
He contracted it back in august and had an amputation Thanksgiving.
He's healing nicely with my wife taking care of him.

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
I have a friend here at my house now I demanded he stay with me until he's healed.
He contracted it back in august and had an amputation Thanksgiving.
He's healing nicely with my wife taking care of him.

My son has had it a couple of times from bug bites.

My grandfather was hospitalized several times with it. He didn't take the best care of himself despite having diabetes and congestive heart failure. If he had an insect bite he'd scratch until it bled so he always had scabs on his legs. For example, he'd buy enough Easter ham for a family 3x our family's size, eat leftover ham 3x per day for a week, the salt from the ham would overwhelm his water pill, his legs would swell up, and just seemed to make his legs susceptible to bacteria infections.

I've not only heard of if it, I have had it.

First time was after getting a light tap in the shin when dropping a water ski. No break in the skin and no visible bruise at all, just a mildly tender spot That caused a clot to form in an upper compartment in the lower leg and that led to Compartment Syndrome. End result of that was Cellulitis in the ankle a month later that blew my left foot up like a football. Went to the ER and was told I was within 24 hours of developing Gangrene and losing my foot. The Dr. drew a black line with a Sharpie around the inflamed area, was giving an antibiotic strong enough to make my vision go blank due to loss of blood pressure and told to return to the ER if I didn't see the inflammation draw from that black margin within 2 hours. BTW try sitting sometime when you cannot see anything and have a nurse screaming at you to "sit down". Good news is that the antibiotic took care of the major infection and I finished up with 10 days on another pill form antibiotic, IIRC Cipro.

Second time was after another hit to the shin. This time due to a lazy ass tool room manager who left a bar of steel in the band saw right across the normal walking lane. This time I recognized the change in skin color and warmth in the preliminary stages so I hit an urgent care. So no major flareup, just 10 days of taking an antibiotic.

Note, Cellulitis can have multiple causes. In my case a somewhat reduced circulation in the lower legs in the shins makes me vulnerable clotting leading to Compartment Syndrome. Hopefully having taken up jogging 2 years ago I'm improving my circulation in the legs so it won't happen again.

Early symptoms of Compartment Syndrome are a mild localized soreness that seems to migrate down the leg over several weeks. In addition to this there will be an area that is slightly warm to the touch and in Caucasions a visible yellowish tinge to the skin over the area of underlying low grade inflammation. Catch it early and it's easy to treat. Act as if it will go away over time and you can end up in a cascading crisis that ends with having parts of your body removed due to Gangrene or Necrotizing Faciitis. To be blunt if you have an area of inflammation that increases in size get yourself to a Doctor. Because if you don't it can get really bad very quickly.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Scooter123,

Extremely common. As an urgent care practitioner I see it pretty much every day. Germ gets into the skin and says “ we like it here let’s set up home and reproduce “ and can go from an easily managed infection to life threatening sepsis or amputations.

Yes, and MRSA. Which the daughter of a guy I worked with probably picked up working out on a machine at a gym.

quote:

Originally posted by captain127:
Extremely common. As an urgent care practitioner I see it pretty much every day. Germ gets into the skin and says “ we like it here let’s set up home and reproduce “ and can go from an easily managed infection to life threatening sepsis or amputations.

Definitely this.

As I understand it - we all have these germs in / on us 24/7/365. If we become compromised and our immune systems temporarily weakened (like getting a bad cold or flu)... these germs that normally are 'well-suppressed' go BANG!! overnight and greatly proliferate. Many times in a joint like the ankle or knee or fingers where there is a 'capsule' for them to colonize.

They are common in miltary training venues. When I was in Ranger School lots of guys got it because we were so physically weakened, fatigued, stressed, under-nourished plus all the nicks, cuts and bruises associated with Army field training.

Nowadays when I get even small cuts on my extremities I watch them like a hawk.

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Cellulitis just means skin infection. MRSA is so common now that any skin infection with abscess/pus we treat as if it’s MRSA with bactrim or clindamycin (outpatient.) We generally will admit bad hand cellulitis because there is a chance you can develope a tenosynovitis or infection/inflammation of the tendon sheaths which can lead to loss of function of the hand. The gym may or may not have played a role. Common bacteria’s found on most any surface can cause cellulitis. One of the more common ways to get it is by scratching bug bites. Most cellulitis infections are simple and don’t require admission. Just 7 days of antibiotics. People with co-morbidities like diabetes are at a higher risk for developing more severe infections/sepsis. These infections can lead to things like necrotizing fasciitis and fourniers gangrene.