*** WARNING ***
The following blog post has grotesque pictures. Not pretty.
Those with weak constitutions are urged to skip this post.
Once upon a time, not long ago in November of 2003, I wasn't feeling well. I got the chills and my body ached all over, you know, like when you get the flu? So I went to bed. When I woke up, my leg hurt. My ankle was bright red and hot. And it hurt. Long story short (5 ER visits, many, many different antibiotics, several doctors that didn't listen and then and finally getting admitted) I had an infection on my leg. It hurt. Really bad. I was in the hospital for a week on heavy drugs to stop the infection. It hurt. Bad.
Diagnosis? Unknown.
~*~*~*~** magically fast forward to September 2011~*~*~*~**
I wasn't feeling well. I got the chills and my body ached all over, you know, like when you get the flu? So I went to bed. When I woke up, my leg hurt. My ankle was bright red and hot. And it hurt. Déjà vu much? Same leg, exact same spot, exact same symptoms. Went to the ER. Ended up staying for a day or so. This time, they took me seriously!
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| Ankle in the ER. You can't see the line I had drawn earlier (it faded), but it had grown about an inch over the course of about 7-8 hours. |
Went home, then had a follow up with my ever so awesome doctor. A couple days later...
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| Same leg, a few days later, four new red, hot, painful spots, but the ankle area is going down and 'healing' |
Leg swollen, and random red, hot, painful spots, but the red area that was on my ankle, going away.
Went back to the doctor, and was put on an additional dose of oral antibiotics, and and then went home and kept my leg up (again) for a few days. This seemed to help. After the next doctor check up, things were looking much better. I still never got a definitive answer as to what has been plaguing my leg. Fortunately this time it didn't get nearly as bad. In 2003, the infection was almost up to my knee before it started rescind. I hope this is the last time this mysterious infection and I dance around. It is very painful and worrisome and something I can live without.
Paging Dr. House.....
1 comment:
So this random, but oddly enough I've had something similar before, likely not exactly the same thing, but similar. After mine lasted more than a week I went to the doctor and the doctor diagnosed it right away as an infection related to strep. I tested positive for strep but didn't even have a sore throat. He gave me regular strep meds to kill the infection. My hot spots turned to nasty bruises after they went down, was yours the same before? The fancy name was eryothema nodosum. When you read about it on the web it says the spots aren't larger than a quarter, but mine were bigger like yours. The doctor did say it was unusual for this to happen to people not 60+ in age. Maybe this will help....good luck finding some relief!
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