photo credit: Opo Terser
I got home from my weekend away on Sunday to discover that my daughter had been bitten on the arm by an insect whilst walking the dog on Saturday.
Considering she didn’t feel a thing it looked very swollen and red – there wasn’t much we could do about it though on a Sunday so a dose of anti-histamine was administered and lets see how it is in the morning…..
Monday morning came and my girl was in a lot of pain – her arm had swollen and there were little blisters appearing.
She was on a late shift at work that day so booked a doctors appointment.
The doctor said “Oh God!” when he saw it which, on reflection, is enough to scare any patient – he then prescribed two different anti biotics and drew a line in biro around the affected area – telling her if the swelling and redness crossed the line she would need intravenous anti-biotics.
On Tuesday morning it seemed a little easier with less redness although the redness had definitely crossed the doctor’s line, in fact the area was going white – my daughter said she would update the doctor but she felt it was improving.
She saw a different doctor who said he thought it had gone past an allergic reaction and that he was going to treat her for cellulitis. He told her to go home and wait for a phone call to arrange for an i.v canula to be inserted and anti biotics to be given through it.
The first pair of nurses came last night fitted the canula, and gave the first dose.
This morning it is still looking swollen and angry and is painful but my daughter says it is not as bad as before pain-wise…..
Hopefully, with district nurses calling twice a day to administer the drugs – she will now start to get better.
To be fair she is more worried about missing work after only a short time at her new job …. that is the least of my worries as you can imagine!!!
Firstly I want to kill the insect …… if it’s not dead already!!!!
There was much discussion about this in the other Skillett household last night. Apparently she’ll be more susceptible to this in future particularly after swimming in the sea – it’s normally a jellyfish “thing” I’m assured!!
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That looks nasty. I hope it clears up real soon.
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Nasty. Pretty common reaction to a spider bite out here actually especially the little blisters thing. It must have been bad for all that antibiotic treatment. Hope she’s on the mend. I guess we’re used to insects gnawing at us on a regular basis. I don’t even scratch a mozzie bite these days.
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I got stung by a woodwasp once, right under my eye. The next day I woke up with a head twice the size as normal. Ended up on antibiotics and steroids. The swelling came down after about a week, but it was very amusing talking to people who were trying very hard to ignore my humungous head. The wood wasp lived to tell the tale, since I hate killing anything, even if it did sting me.
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Nasty, nasty stuff. Must have been quite a bug to wreak that much havoc. I trust all will clear up. Notwithstanding what DBM says, I would set out on a safari to find that little bu**er, and if found, it would not survive!
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Sounds unpleasant but glad they got it under control. Looks like Dr was being cautious. A friend had Cellulitis diagnosed but not until afte leg had swelled and she ended up hardly able to walk for some time.
Eucalyptus! We had 2, the first got unstable and blew downin a storm, the second got far more than we could manage so we removed it. Going to Wiltshire. Yes there will be lots of photos.
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Keiron – Lets not even think about it shall we – its been a tough week!! xx
Grannymar – it really is horrid and was still creeping down her arm last night – tho it did look a little less red this morning!
Baino – Its usually me falling foul of insect bites – Toria doesn’t usually have any reaction. And spiders (?) its a good job we don’t get the biting sort here – I have an unreasonable fear of spiders.
DBM – That sounds horrendous – I think Toria would have gone into hiding – its bad enough having a Popeye arm!!! Sorry – but I have no problem in killing wasps – too many stings I think!!!
Cortes – I’m with you having seen how poorly she was last night when I got home from work – this is very nasty – but she gets the chance to use my shower sleeve so there is a plus!!!
Barbara – I’m just hoping that youth is on her side and she improves quickly once the drugs take effect.
Wiltshire? Thats where that very Eucalyptus is ! I had a lovely time there last weekend – there are some beautiful places to visit too – I shall enjoy reading about your travels…
Ah, that looks a LOT like the way I used to swell up in reaction to mosquito and sandfly bites in NZ. The last mozzie bite on my leg before we left reached tea-plate proportions. The docs out there were very blase, and just said take antihistamines, it’ll go away, and they always did.
It sounds like a sandfly bite, and no, you don’t have to be at the beach, anywhere there’s running water, they breed. You never hear them coming, they’re tiny little soft-bodied black flies, and they’re silent – and you never feel them bite you, unless it’s a faint tickling sensation. But the bite starts to swell, and then the area around it blisters. It can take three weeks to heal. And funnily enough, my son has a bite just like it on his leg right now. His doc told him antihistamines too, but I told him if he noticed any red streaking he must go and ask for antibiotics. It’s a bit better this morning though.
I’m cringing the whole time reading this. If there’s anything I fear about summer, it’s one of the kids getting bit by something weird.
DBM – that’s awful…and yet funny all at the same time!
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Jay – Maybe thats what it was – she was near the lakes when she was bitten. I have never seen a reaction like this before though – I get huge fluid filled bubbles come up when I’m bitten and I always need anti biotics – but Toria never had a reaction beyond a little bit of itching before.
Fracas – Welcome! – I have always been told to eat garlic so that my skin isn’t worth biting – or use Tiger balm to put them off. Its the red lines you need to look for ….scary isn’t the word!!!
Poor girl, what a nasty bug.
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Oh dear! that does look painful! Do hope its much better today
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Ouch, what a horrible experience! I hope your daughter feels better soon. I wonder what it was.. ? Could it have been a tick? Has she been tested for Lime’s Disease?
My baby grandson is allergic to mosquito bites – each bite becomes a festering yellow blister that spreads into a large pulpy brown stain and then breaks open. Bah! He has a few now and the doctor has given him 2 antibiotic creams . Can’t see that they are helping much though.
Tiger Balm? I’m going to try that. Thanks!
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P.S.
Sorry, I mean Lyme’s Disease, not Lime’s (!)
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Last week I was reading an article in my newspaper saying that there was a strain of mosquito now in the south of England whose bite could cause Cellulitis.
Maybe this was behind your daughters problem.
They advised staying away from stagnant water.
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Ouch! that looks very nasty, i’m working in a flower nursery at the moment and was weeding peonies last week, apparently red ants love peonies, and I kept finding them running all over my hands, the bites were extremely irritating but not a health concern. Lymes Disease is a big problem in Europe these days, but if your Daughter had been been bitten by a tick she would know about it as they have to be physically pulled out. That looks like what my Mother suffered years ago when she was bitten by a horse flie, but again, I think she would have known about it ‘cos they’re huge! Hope she’s recovered now.
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Barbara – Thank you – it might explain it as when she was bitten she was walking the dog by the lake…
Gitwizard – She is much better now thanks she thought it might have been a horse fly at first but Barbara’s theory does make sense.
I couldn’t do your job – ants love eating me …. but I do love peonies even if their beauty is a little short lived!!!
I have come to thank you for blogging that. This past week, my daughter (who had a scrape on her foot) came to me and showed me how, over only a couple of hours her foot had swollen, she couldn’t walk and there was red patches spreading from both sides of the scab. Because I’d read your post, I immediately thought of cellulitis and looked it up, took her to the hospital and indeed it was. It was quite bad actually. She is still not able to walk several days later. Been through the IV antibiotics with the take home unit on her arm and now on oral meds. She’d been wearing heels that night and first thought it was just that… dancing on heels, etc. wait till morning and see if it’s better, but because I thought it might be cellulitis, I made her go then and that turned out to be wise. The thing was spreading as we watched while she was on the IV. Scary.
So… thanks for the post! <3
Fracas – oh how worrying for you and your daughter – your first comment expressed your fears (just like mine) of your children getting something like this – and for it to happen just a short time later is dreadful!
I do hope she feels better soon – Toria had itchy skin problems afterwards plus strange temperatures but – she is fine now thank goodness.
I’m glad I posted about it now although I was in two minds at the time – at least it helped!!!!
Hi again!
She’s still on crutches because she can’t put weight on her foot; it still hurts. Thanks for the tip on the itchy skin and temperatures; I’ll remember that. Oddly, about two weeks before this happened to her foot, she had received a bug bite (underneath her eye) that swole up and they said was infected. They gave her a topical antibiotic that time and it went down. This scary episode (they actually forbade her to work and put her on bedrest with her foot elevated for three days) was the result of a simple scrape that got either staph or strep into it… kind of like what happens with flesh-eating disease. It actually reminded me of that when we were watching it.
Just goes to show though, that the things we blog about might not seem like much but end up being important to someone who reads it!
Thanks again.
Apparently this kind of tissue infection can re-occur as well so we are still monitoring just in case!! Toria was off work for the week too!