Forums >Health and Nutrition>Sometimes a bee sting is not just a bee sting...
rectumdamnnearkilledem
Sometimes it can turn to cellulitis. I was stung by a honey bee on my right shin while on my bike 3 days ago. By yesterday I had a large area of red surrounding the bite, which I had assumed must be a large localized allergic reaction (pain is not severe, as most people report with cellulitis...but I didn't have severe pain when I had shingles, either, which tends to be pretty excruciating. I'm a freak). I posted a photo on FB today and a childhood friend -- who also happens to be an Army MD -- said he thought it looked like cellulitis. A quick Google and I was off to the med center.
Mark called it. I'm now on 10 days of Septra DS 2x/day. Again I'm thankful for the internet. I had been planning to wait-and-see for at least another day before Mark threw something so horrifying into cyberspace. All sorts of bad could come from this infection...sepsis, compartment syndrome, tissue necrosis. Icky.
Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to
remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
~ Sarah Kay
Wow. Glad to hear that you jumped on this to get it treated and I hope that you are now on the mend. Thank you for sharing as I would have probably taken a 'wait and see' posture as well.
Rebuilding my aerobic base....racing next year.....nothing to see here....move along now.
Yeah, I figured with my long history of respiratory allergies (and suspected shrimp--which makes me want to cry) that I had developed a bee allergy. I was thinking I would just let it "run its course" and continue taking Benadryl and coating my shin in cortisone cream.
Yikes! My friend just had this two weeks ago but it looked completely different. She thought it was an ant bite and picked at it and then it got all disgusting. She had to have it drained and packed every day for a week. We assumed she had just been bitten by one of the poisonous centipedes they have out here. Sent me pictures that made me nearly spit out the food I had in my mouth at the time. Only after sending two of them did she say, "Oh I hope you weren't eating!" Blech.
Anyways, glad you got it checked out and hope that it starts feeling better soon!!
Yeah, ha...I made the mistake of doing a Google Image search -- blech!!!
Ho. Ly. Crap.
For me, being of the male persuasion, seeking medical attention for anything short of death is an absolute last resort. But hard to imagine letting that one slide. Unless you just spilled an entire bottle of red wine on your leg, that thing just does not look normal.
Funny about the bee sting; as you know I share your propensity for allergies and general respiratory ailments. A number of years ago I was home alone & out working in the yard, and got stung by a bee. I realized I had never been stung before, and thought hmm, I have no idea whether I'm allergic to this, I could just die here all by myself. Of course I was not, and I didn't, but that thing did hurt like a mofo for hours.
And don't get me started on hornets.
Dave
Funny about the bee sting; as you know I share your propensity for allergies and general respiratory ailments. A number of years ago I was home alone & out working in the yard, and got stung by a bee. I realized I had never been stung before, and thought hmm, I have no idea whether I'm allergic to this, I could just die here all by myself. Of course I was not, and I didn't, but that thing did hurt like a mofo for hours. And don't get me started on hornets.
Oh, I was really paranoid while riding, too. I've had so few bee stings in my life and I know that allergy can come on pretty unexpectedly. We were semi out in BFE, so an anaphylactic reaction would have been bad. I actually called an allergist and made an appt. for testing next month. I've been dragging my feet on that for years, but I really need to know exactly what my allergies are and go through immunotherapy so that maybe I can stop taking Zyrtec 365 days/year. Maybe I can be done with asthma, too. That would be nice.
old woman w/hobby
That does look bad. Glad that you got it diagnosed quickly.
steph
Good Bad & The Monkey
Well...does not look like cellulitis to me...
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
Trent, what would be your suspicion...?
Maybe I can be done with asthma, too. That would be nice.
Good luck with that one, let me know how it goes.
PM sent.
Awesome start to "Blobs On Beautiful Legs" Tuesday. Now off to Google images for a day that will either traumatize me or make me stronger. Thanks, Zoom-Zoom, you've made me stronger (I just screamed a little).
(hope you heal quickly)
Eh, my legs were never "beautiful" by any stretch of the imagination...stocky, cankles, stretch marks, scarred from childhood dares and adult bike crashes. "Interesting" and "lived-in" are probably more accurate descriptors.
I'm already seeing improvement this AM. Swelling is down, redness is slightly reduced, and no further spread from what the med center doc measured in the office. I never had severe pain, but what sort of dull ache I did have is almost entirely gone. I didn't even bother with Advil or Benadryl this AM.
I refer to my collection of well aged scars and abrasions as 'the patina that life caused'.