Cellulitis in good arm!

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kareenie
kareenie Member Posts: 339
edited May 2017 in Lymphedema

It started wth a bug bite yesterday am above elbow on triceps area. Put some hydrocortisone on it. Itched and burned all day but I never looked at it. At bedtime I saw it was swollen and tight , hot and red. About 3 x 4 inch rectangle. This morning I went to pcp and she prescribed keflex 500 mg 4 x a day for 7 days.

Hope this doesn't lead to LE in good arm. (Prophy mx that side, no nodes purposely removed.)

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  • ChiSandy
    ChiSandy Member Posts: 12,133
    edited May 2017

    LE usually is a risk for cellulitis to occur if the skin of the surgical-side arm is breached, not the other way around. LE is the result of an interruption in or impairment of the lymph system, and an impaired lymph system cannot fight off an infection as well as can an intact one—hence, cellulitis. But as to “no nodes purposely removed” from the prophy mx breast, that does not mean no nodes were removed nor that your lymph system in that quadrant wasn’t breached.There are nodes are in the breast itself. Neither intent to remove, nor awareness at the time of removal, has any bearing on the significance of the nodes being removed. E.g., in my SNB, only two nodes “lit up” as sentinels, but could not be removed without taking the non-sentinels attached to them. Therefore, I had 4 nodes removed, even if they were all negative and only two were “purposely” removed as sentinels.

    And if the pathogen is aggressive enough, cellulitis can occur regardless of whether your nodes are intact. Decades before my bc diagnosis & surgery, I had cellulitis in an ingrown toenail and again from a kitten bite on my arm.

    Hydrocortisone is not a good idea after a bug bite, while the skin is still broken—it is an immunosuppressant, and could have hastened the bite becoming infected.

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  • vlnrph
    vlnrph Member Posts: 1,632
    edited May 2017

    Hope Kareenie is healing well. Tis the season?!

    I was stung by something on the back of my good arm, just above the elbow, while outdoors last weekend. A ridinglawn mower in the area may have disturbed a bee/hornet nest but I don't really know what it was. Remained slightly red overnight - was glad it wasn't my LE extremity and that it didn't get worse.

    We are getting lots of warnings about ticks which carry a nasty infectious agent, worse than Lyme disease...

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  • hugz4u
    hugz4u Member Posts: 2,781
    edited May 2017

    Vlnrnp. Oh brother you mean where not only battling Lyme. What is worse than than. I never heard. For sure I'll get it cause I get all the weird diseases when they come along. Ticks smell me a mile away. Have to knock them off when on trails.

    Two summers ago I transplanted lords and ladies plant. I was all rubber gloved up and long sleeved and somehow the plant rubbed under my tight fitting cloths and gave me a chemical burn on le arm.The kind that comes bright red when you explode it to sun. Haven't seen it go red yet this spring because I haven't exposed arm to sun. See I do get weird things happening. Dang.

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  • vlnrph
    vlnrph Member Posts: 1,632
    edited May 2017

    Forgot to mention the insect/whatever got me thru a long sleeve knit shirt!

    A new worry for the midwest and northeast is the tick-borne Powassan virus, named after a town in Ontario. Causes a nasty syndrome including potentially deadly encephalitis and permanent neuropathy, if you survive. Does not show a sign like the Lyme bull's eye reaction or succumb to antibiotics.

    I thought we were safe since Zika mosquitoes prefer the tropics...

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  • hugz4u
    hugz4u Member Posts: 2,781
    edited May 2017

    vinrnp. Oh brother what's next. I feel like I should just offer my body up to the bugs and get eaten to death just to avoid all the side effects from these new strange diseases. Starting to think maybe a big screen tent enveloping my property

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