I had it when I was in Panama years ago. We were in the field, so you are dirty and filthy anyway plus the heat, humidity, and being wet pretty much 24/7 didn't help at all.

They think it was from a bug bite that got infected. It started out as a swollen foot. By about the second day my foot was bigger than my boot. I has to be medivaced to the Army hospital. I spent about a week in the hospital being pumped full of meds and soaking my foot in warm salt water. After a couple of days of this I i was rubbing and squeezing my foot, and the nastiest most disgusting ball of puss exploded from my foot!! Instant relief.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:

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.

---------------------------------------------

Not necessarily, there usually has to be a breach in the integrity of the skin to allow bacteria to enter into the skin layers. Bacteria simply coating the top of the epidermis will not lead to infection. This is why people should always clean any wounds from scrapes to lacerations. Very healthy people can get cellulitis. It’s just right place right time. Injury to the skin and there just so happens to be a specific bacteria near by that invades the space. However The severity of the infection can definitely be mitigated by the persons overall health.

I'm getting over a case of it myself. I had an ant bite on my left thigh. I thought I was having a bad reaction to the bite because it felt like I had been punched at the bite location, a day later. Three days later I could hardly bend my knee. The doc put me on an ointment antibiotic and a pill antibiotic. I'm glad it wasn't MRSA as I waited longer than I should have to get treated. I'm always getting scraped up, bitten etc doing outdoor stuff. I never thought twice about something as minor as an ant bite would lead to cellulitis.

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
Not necessarily, there usually has to be a breach in the integrity of the skin to allow bacteria to enter into the skin layers. Bacteria simply coating the top of the epidermis will not lead to infection.

This is my understanding.

My friend, being, like myself, "older," has a problem with his skin cracking due to dry skin. (I only have it in the wintertime, when in air's dry.)

So the other thing I'll be doing it staying on top of that problem with more frequent use of moisturizer.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

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.

That seems a little overboard. But hey, whatever floats ya'.

I can't stand wearing gloves in the gym. Full fingered gloves sound like torture. Though I'm also the type who could never stand wearing gloves during a job either no matter how dirty it got. The last time I remember wearing gloves during a workout was 7 or 8 years ago on a ship when we had the free weights on the stern deck, and I had to lift in 20 degree weather during a blizzard. I actually miss those workouts come to think of it. Nothing gets your blood pumping like working out in the freezing cold.

We were to sanitize the bar in between uses on the powerlifting teams/USAPL matches. I thought it was a hold over from the tetanus era (aStrongman competitor died lockjaw in the early 1900s or so)

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
We were to sanitize the bar in between uses on the powerlifting teams/USAPL matches. I thought it was a hold over from the tetanus era (aStrongman competitor died lockjaw in the early 1900s or so)

Speaking of tetanus that’s one thing I 100% recommend every has updated regularly. I’ve only taken care of one tetanus patient in my career and it’s brutal. Basically we perform a tracheostomy and put you in a coma for 3 months. We run some immunoglobulin and penicillin IV and hope for the best. The lady that I took care of fractured multiple vertebrae just from the muscle spasms. She held on for a few months but ultimately didn’t make it.

I've contracted diagnosed cellulitis twice, and have suffered from a non-specified infection several other times, that was most likely cellulitis.

I've contracted it as the only complaint on two occassions, and in conjunction with more serious cardiac issues on several others.

The first time I contracted it I had been hit in the knee by an airplane propeller and the wound was immediately cleaned and bandaged and was healing nicely... the wound had shrunk to a small scab but in a moment of alcohol related stupidity several weeks later I started to notice a redness and swelling and stiffness around the wound. Mind you there was NO pain. Every day there was a noticeable spreading of the redness and swelling above and below the small injury site, and my knee grew progressively stiff and I was only able to limp on it. After 5 days some co-workers 'forced' me to have it checked. It was a Friday evening and so I went to an Urgent Care clinic. When the doctor opened the door and saw me sitting on the exam room table, she hadn't even entered the room and she said "oh you are going to the emergency room".

When I explained that I needed to drive home 45 minutes away to pack a bag she said "nope, you are going right now", and she called the hospital to notify them to expect me. The hospital wanted to keep me longer but agreed to release me after 23 hours of IV antibiotics and soaking the injury site in hot moist cloth. After being released I stayed on an oral AB and continued to keep my leg elevated while continuing to soak the injury. The day after being released from the hospital I was soaking the site when the injury softened to the point where some nasty blood/pus started to ooze out. I could press on my upper thigh and lower leg and this nastiness would come out at my knee.

The second time I contracted cellulitis the only cause I can think of was that I had gone fishing the day before and wore my fishing waders while wearing shorts. After working my 3 day shift that week, with the same symptoms progressing, I packed a hospital bag but drove to a doctor's office first. I didn't have an appointment but they squeezed me in and I was surprised that the doctor agreed to treat me as an out patient rather than admitting me. They immediately started me on a high dose of this ginormous oral AB pill, but for 3 straight mornings I had to report to the clinic for a mega AB dose shot. The nurses seemed to take great delight in giving me the shot in the ass and then adding insult to injury by putting kids bandages with Looney Tunes animal characters on the injection sight. I missed a week of work followed by a week of restricted duty on that occurrence.

The last several infections occurred in conjunction with other serious health issues, always started in my lower legs and quickly spread into my lower waist and torso, and involved weeks of hospitalization and IV antibiotics and oral ABs both in the hospital and after being released. I don't recall all of the ABs I was given but I know one was Cipro and the others were the strongest available at the time.

The last few instances of cellulitis produced some low grade pain similar to a burning sensation and also seemed to cause areas of my lower legs to permanently lose some feeling.

Later in life my father developed cellulitis and other infections along with his serious health issues that were the same as mine. After he passed, at his memorial service, I was talking to a cousin who told me that his mother (my father's sister) also suffered from bouts of cellulitis.

I can't help but wonder if there isn't a genetic component to the susceptibility to infections like cellulitis.

I'd strongly recommend that anyone who notices a rapidly spreading redness and swelling infection to seek medical attention PDQ.

Dude....just go to the gym and workout. Wipe down the equipment before you use it.

No need to wear a hazmat outfit. There's literally 10 million other things to worry about.

I hope no one mentions the threat of "rabdo" to you

Got it on bootcamp from a scrape caused by something in my cargo pocket after getting into some nasty water. Small scrape went from nothing to searing pain & swelling in less than 12 hours. The Navy Corpsman had me scrub it with betadine and gave me some antibiotics and sent me back to my platoon.

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:

I hope no one mentions the threat of "rabdo" to you

I thought about it but then thought I shouldn't.

A friend of mine nearly lost his entire hand from a barnacle scrape. Got infected etc. Took him near a year for his hand to repair totally.

quote:

Originally posted by brecaidra:

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:

I hope no one mentions the threat of "rabdo" to you

I thought about it but then thought I shouldn't.

Guess I'll look it up.

Thing is: Other gym-goers are very bad about wiping-down when they're done. I've never seen people using free weights do it. (Nor do I.)
If I were to wipe-down before and after using stuff it'd about double my gym time. (Tried it, once.)
So: Long pants, sleeves and full-fingered gloves. Problem solved.

I have to be careful for an additional reason: My wife is allergic to many drugs, incl. many antibiotics. I have to take care to avoid bringing things home.

ETA: Rhabdomyolysis? Srsly? I don't think I'm gonna worry overmuch about that <smh>

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by brecaidra:

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:

I hope no one mentions the threat of "rabdo" to you

I thought about it but then thought I shouldn't.

Guess I'll look it up.

Thing is: Other gym-goers are very bad about wiping-down when they're done. I've never seen people using free weights do it. (Nor do I.)
If I were to wipe-down before and after using stuff it'd about double my gym time. (Tried it, once.)
So: Long pants, sleeves and full-fingered gloves. Problem solved.

I have to be careful for an additional reason: My wife is allergic to many drugs, incl. many antibiotics. I have to take care to avoid bringing things home.

ETA: Rhabdomyolysis? Srsly? I don't think I'm gonna worry overmuch about that <smh>

If you're gonna worry about silly things like cellulitis from the gym, why not worry about rhabdomyolysis? You never know man.

One minute, you're working out in your fancy new under armor hazmat suit, next minute you got the Rhabdo.

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
If you're gonna worry about silly things like cellulitis from the gym, why not worry about rhabdomyolysis?

Because rhabdo is unlikely, unless a piece of gym equipment falls on me, but colds, flu and diseases of the skin most definitely are not.

I went to sick bay once at MCRD for a small cut on my thumb that got infected. They said it was "early cellulitis" and gave me antibiotics. While there, I met a guy with advanced cellulitis from an infected blister on the heel. The hole was down to the bone! Moral of the story: take care of those foot blisters and other open wounds (or better yet, prevent them).

Last year cellulitis came within a whisker of ending my life.

On a June morning, I was dealing with the aftermath of a really bad cluster headache. I felt like shit, a not uncommon state the day after a KIP 8 cluster headache.

By pure chance daughter-chan happened to be in town and stopped by. She felt my forehead and pronounced that I had a fever. Again, I thought it was the after effect of the cluster headache, but when she got a thermometer and took my temperature it was 103.5.

I toodled off to the nearby urgent care which is also an office for the practice that is my primary care. There, 30 minutes later, my temp was 104.3. They said to go to a full service ER, so I drove 10 miles, in a condition one step worse than drunk off my ass, where at the ER intake my temp was 105.4. It peaked at 105.9, in a cold room with ice packs and IV fluid being pushed in at a fast rate.

Five days later, after massive IV doses of Vancomycin and a stay in a communicable disease room, I was released.

Make no mistake, daughter-chan saved my life that day.

Don't mess around with cellulitis.

I had it on my foot going up my ankle concurrently with an abscessed staph infection in 2014. 4 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics and pain pills plus a round of oral antibiotics once I got sprung cleared it up.

I narrowly avoided surgery to clean out the wounds a second time. An experience I'm not keen on repeating any time soon.

For the record, I haven't set foot in a gym in years. My best guess is that it came from the same tack that caused the abscess - always make minor puncture wounds bleed a little, folks.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
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.

Same for me.

I got it in my right knee the last few days of Ranger School, down in Florida. My right knee was the one I would always kneel on when we stopped during a patrol. I stuck it out for the final few days; not wanting to take the chance of being recycled. We finished the final patrol, I secured my M16, and went straight over to the aid station for some antibiotics. Back to normal in about 1-2 weeks.