The Flesh Eating Bacteria
Posted on | November 22, 2008
by | Kim, Obl.O.S.B
If you have a gentle stomach, I wouldn’t be reading this post.
So, Greg’s hands are well … who know what’s wrong with them. The doctor at the Urgent Care said it was eczema that wasn’t “that bad” but gave him a prescription for the strongest steroid creme he could get. While Greg was getting the creme filled, the pharmacist said that his fingers didn’t look like he had eczema but rather athlete’s foot on his hand. If he uses the steroid creme and his weirdness is a fungus, it would just get worse.
Greg is in a ton of pain. The weirdness is contained to three fingers on his right hand only – it doesn’t spread to me, or Elise, or anywhere else on his body. It looks like it’s a second degree burn, but he didn’t burn himself. It’s been going on since August, is leaking clear to yellow fluid, and just looks horrific. It’s swollen, he can’t bend his fingers, and the skin is falling off in many places. It also burns.
He has an appointment with the City-County Health Co-op on December 8th, but until then he’s at the mercy of pain relievers and other things. He doesn’t have the steroid creme – Walgreen’s is holding on to his prescription and will fill it if antifungal stuff doesn’t work (per his request, don’t want to seem like Wags is becoming Dr. Wags on us – he doesn’t want to get it filled unless absolutely needed). :/
Anyways, has anyone seen or heard anything like this? I’ve included pictures for gross sake, included below:
The index, middle, and ring fingers are all affected, as mentioned above: bleeding, skin is falling off of them, oozing clear to yellow pus, swelling, and painful.
The underside – you can see his index finger is raw, bleeding, and oozing.
“But Kim”, you may be thinking, “that just looks like crazy bad dry skin.”
May I present to you why we call it “flesh eating bacteria”.
My camera was being special, but you can see that it’s quite nasty looking. :/
The oozing weirdness makes us think some sort of an infection, but we’re not sure what it is or even how to treat it. Greg would prefer to steer clear of steroids unless absolutely necessary, and who can blame him.
Prayers would be appreciated to figure out what this is and appropriate treatment.
Comments
5 Responses to “The Flesh Eating Bacteria”
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November 23rd, 2008 @ 7:30 am
I have dyshidrotic excema and it looks similar. Do a google search for excema and see if his symptoms and pics match some of the stuff you find. We also thought it was fungal at first, but my dermatologist is adamant that it is not, and it responded to the cream she prescribed. Mine doesn’t ooze unless the top layers of skin are removed, and it causes deep cracks. My doc said to use super glue to keep those cracks together. Of course, DH is not convinced and thinks I should treat it with apple cider vinegar.javascript:use_emoticon_comment(‘:-O’) IMO, a pharmacy has no business withholding your scrip because they think it’s wrong. I hope this is not all TMI, but I thought my story might help you.
November 23rd, 2008 @ 7:32 am
I also should have said that my doc told me to moisturize like crazy. Somehow that helps the excema. She recommended Cetaphyl (sp?) and then gave me a prescription moisturizer. Who knew there was such a thing?
November 23rd, 2008 @ 8:40 am
Thank you for responding.
We did Google hand eczema last night and found some pretty interesting stuff, a lot of which does look like his hand. He’s had it for a while and has tried a lot of OTC stuff which hasn’t really helped it at all.
And my apologies, he asked the pharmacy to hold his script for him while he tried the anti-fungal stuff. He still is not sure about getting it filled – I think he’s going to get a second opinion about treatment options. He just doesn’t like steroids at all, and doesn’t want to spend the money to get it filled unless he has to. I should have made that a little clearer in my post, yay for sleep deprivation!
I’ll let him know to gob on the moisturizer until he can get to a second opinion or better, a dermatologist.
November 24th, 2008 @ 8:50 am
Hmmmm….
The blistering is odd for the eczema that I know of. Did he have any initial itching or blotchy-scaly redness before the peeling began?
Truth be told, it looks like the athlete’s foot my husband had acquired from his bachelor pad way back when. The skin between his toes was cracked & oozing. All over his feet the skin was peeling off in patches, plus blisters. SO. We treated with OTC creams, plus gentle script steroid creams that I used for eczema. That did the trick in about a week.
I would also advise not eating sugar for two or three weeks to allow for the fungus/yeastie beasties to die off. Also, if you can afford it, try some good quality ( higher price=quality) cod liver oil. I have not had *any* eczema patches since I started taking it 8 months ago.
~A
November 24th, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
FWIW, one of the symptoms my dermatologist used to diagnose my excema was blisters. But not eating sugar is good advice no matter what’s going on. I need to take that advice myself. I’m glad it’s getting better.