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OK... WTF?

A

alexjohnson16

Platinum Member
My elbow has had a mark on it and started swelling all week, and I told my mom (I'm 19 and live at home) and she just said to keep cleaning it out with peroxide and pushing the puss out of it to keep it clean, so I did so.

Fast forward to today and this thing is huge and my elbow is swollen and I can't straighten out my arm because it hurts too damn bad, so I finally say screw her and go to the hospital (she wanted me to wait till tomorrow so I wouldn't have to go to the ER and she could save money on it). They diagnose me with cellulitis and give me some meds to help it and rid it of my body.

So tonight, I'm sitting here and I'm burning up. I check my temp, its at 101 degF, and I look through this packet of information says if I develop a fever to go back to the ER. I also look at Google and this is kind of serious from the browsing over a few sites, and I tell her and she says "Take some ibuprofen and go to bed."

Seriously, wtf? Apparently my mom values $$ over my health or not.

What should I do here, march into her room and tell her I need to go? Call the hospital and ask them whats up?

Argh.
 
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
My elbow has had a mark on it and started swelling all week, and I told my mom (I'm 19 and live at home) and she just said to keep cleaning it out with peroxide and pushing the puss out of it to keep it clean, so I did so.

Fast forward to today and this thing is huge and my elbow is swollen and I can't straighten out my arm because it hurts too damn bad, so I finally say screw her and go to the hospital (she wanted me to wait till tomorrow so I wouldn't have to go to the ER and she could save money on it). They diagnose me with cellulitis and give me some meds to help it and rid it of my body.

So tonight, I'm sitting here and I'm burning up. I check my temp, its at 101 degF, and I look through this packet of information says if I develop a fever to go back to the ER. I also look at Google and this is kind of serious from the browsing over a few sites, and I tell her and she says "Take some ibuprofen and go to bed."

Seriously, wtf? Apparently my mom values $$ over my health or not.

What should I do here, march into her room and tell her I need to go? Call the hospital and ask them whats up?

Argh.
Click to expand...


Drive yourself down there. Or call a nurse first and explain.
 
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
My elbow has had a mark on it and started swelling all week, and I told my mom (I'm 19 and live at home) and she just said to keep cleaning it out with peroxide and pushing the puss out of it to keep it clean, so I did so.

Fast forward to today and this thing is huge and my elbow is swollen and I can't straighten out my arm because it hurts too damn bad, so I finally say screw her and go to the hospital (she wanted me to wait till tomorrow so I wouldn't have to go to the ER and she could save money on it). They diagnose me with cellulitis and give me some meds to help it and rid it of my body.

So tonight, I'm sitting here and I'm burning up. I check my temp, its at 101 degF, and I look through this packet of information says if I develop a fever to go back to the ER. I also look at Google and this is kind of serious from the browsing over a few sites, and I tell her and she says "Take some ibuprofen and go to bed."

Seriously, wtf? Apparently my mom values $$ over my health or not.

What should I do here, march into her room and tell her I need to go? Call the hospital and ask them whats up?

Argh.
Click to expand...

my elbow had a nasty scab on it. i don't know where it came from :Q but its just about healed up now. 🙂
 
Every time I have needed to go to the hospital and put it off, I have regretted it. I would go if I were you.
 
Bah. I feel like a jackass now, called the ER and they said the same thing as my mom (take Motrin/Ibuprofen/Tylenol, etc.).

Why must I get worried about this? I guess it is the first time I've really ever had something wrong with me. Oh well.
 
ok, your mom's way wrong about treating the abscess... you shouldn't use peroxide on it nor should you push puss out to "keep it clean"....

what you should have done was go to the doctor's so he could have given you an antibiotic because it was probably just a strep abscess (i'm assuming because you said it was cellulitis)....

now, you've got a huge infection that's spreading and it's very dangerous.

you should go to the hospital because an increasing temperature is extremely dangerous when you've got such a huge and chronic infection.... it can lead to neurological damage, heart damage, brain damage, etc.

did the doc give you dicloxacillin or cephalexin?

you should have gotten a shot of rocephin after the diagnosis... if the doctor didn't do that, he's an idiot.
 
People are pussies. I hate to put it that way - but we live in a time where people are too trigger friendly, and visit the ER instead of persuing better avenues for dealing with their problems. My sister is a prime example - everytime her child has a fever, she brings her to the ER.

The ER is for EMERGENCIES, 99% of the time, a fever is not an emergency. It just seems like people think the ER is a viable substitute instead of seeing the doctor/physician.
 
Originally posted by: eits
ok, your mom's a fool. you shouldn't use peroxide on it nor should you push puss out to "keep it clean"....

what you should have done was go to the doctor's so he could have given you an antibiotic because it was probably just a strep abscess (i'm assuming because you said it was cellulitis)....

now, you've got a huge infection that's spreading and it's very dangerous.

you should go to the hospital because an increasing temperature is extremely dangerous when you've got such a huge and chronic infection.... it can lead to neurological damage, heart damage, brain damage, etc.

did the doc give you dicloxacillin or cephalexin?

you should have gotten a shot of rocephin after the diagnosis... if the doctor didn't do that, he's an idiot.
Click to expand...

:frown:

I'm on cephalexin. No shot of rocephin.

The only thing they did was asked questions, took a swab of the liquid on the wound, drew blood, gave me vicodin for the pain, took X-Rays (IDK why?) and gave me a cephalexin for then and one for the morning and told me to meet up with my regular Dr. tomorrow.
 
Originally posted by: Ryan
People are pussies. I hate to put it that way - but we live in a time where people are too trigger friendly, and visit the ER instead of persuing better avenues for dealing with their problems. My sister is a prime example - everytime her child has a fever, she brings her to the ER.

The ER is for EMERGENCIES, 99% of the time, a fever is not an emergency. It just seems like people think the ER is a viable substitute instead of seeing the doctor/physician.
Click to expand...

Man, you're such a manly man.

Did you even read the original post?

Apparently from eits reply, this is a serious deal.
 
Originally posted by: Ryan
People are pussies. I hate to put it that way - but we live in a time where people are too trigger friendly, and visit the ER instead of persuing better avenues for dealing with their problems. My sister is a prime example - everytime her child has a fever, she brings her to the ER.

The ER is for EMERGENCIES, 99% of the time, a fever is not an emergency. It just seems like people think the ER is a viable substitute instead of seeing the doctor/physician.
Click to expand...

it is when you've got a huge strep infection on your elbow...
 
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: Ryan
People are pussies. I hate to put it that way - but we live in a time where people are too trigger friendly, and visit the ER instead of persuing better avenues for dealing with their problems. My sister is a prime example - everytime her child has a fever, she brings her to the ER.

The ER is for EMERGENCIES, 99% of the time, a fever is not an emergency. It just seems like people think the ER is a viable substitute instead of seeing the doctor/physician.
Click to expand...

Man, you're such a manly man.

Did you even read the original post?

Apparently from eits reply, this is a serious deal.
Click to expand...

What I'm saying is your mother is wrong too - but that you should have made an appointment with your doctor earlier, before it festered into something you thought could only be taken care of by the ER.
 
Originally posted by: Ryan
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: Ryan
People are pussies. I hate to put it that way - but we live in a time where people are too trigger friendly, and visit the ER instead of persuing better avenues for dealing with their problems. My sister is a prime example - everytime her child has a fever, she brings her to the ER.

The ER is for EMERGENCIES, 99% of the time, a fever is not an emergency. It just seems like people think the ER is a viable substitute instead of seeing the doctor/physician.
Click to expand...

Man, you're such a manly man.

Did you even read the original post?

Apparently from eits reply, this is a serious deal.
Click to expand...

What I'm saying is your mother is wrong too - but that you should have made an appointment with your doctor earlier, before it festered into something you thought could only be taken care of by the ER.
Click to expand...

I would've it had done anything in the last days of the weekend.

This was a small red mark on my elbow on Friday, it grew to almost the size of a pimple on Saturday, and today it was holyfuck swollen and extremely warm to touch.

If I was able to see into the future or knew what this thing was beforehand, I would've done something sooner.

It's not every day that some little red mark on your arm that looks like a mosquito bite explodes into a softball sized lump of pain.
 
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
ok, your mom's a fool. you shouldn't use peroxide on it nor should you push puss out to "keep it clean"....

what you should have done was go to the doctor's so he could have given you an antibiotic because it was probably just a strep abscess (i'm assuming because you said it was cellulitis)....

now, you've got a huge infection that's spreading and it's very dangerous.

you should go to the hospital because an increasing temperature is extremely dangerous when you've got such a huge and chronic infection.... it can lead to neurological damage, heart damage, brain damage, etc.

did the doc give you dicloxacillin or cephalexin?

you should have gotten a shot of rocephin after the diagnosis... if the doctor didn't do that, he's an idiot.
Click to expand...

:frown:

I'm on cephalexin. No shot of rocephin.

The only thing they did was asked questions, took a swab of the liquid on the wound, drew blood, gave me vicodin for the pain, took X-Rays (IDK why?) and gave me a cephalexin for then and one for the morning and told me to meet up with my regular Dr. tomorrow.
Click to expand...

yeah, go to your regular doc tomorrow. he'll probably do better than this er doc...

don't take the vicodin... that was a dumb call by the doc. you don't need vicodin for that... at best, you need 800mg ibuprofen. it's cheaper, less habit-forming, and you don't want to give habit-forming pain pills to people your age.... not that you're a pill popper or anything, but it's a good rule of thumb.... you never know who the patient will sell it to in school or if they'll develop a dependence... same with middle-aged women.

x-rays?!?! wtf?! what the hell kind of differential diagnosis was this guy working on? did it hurt when you moved your elbow or when moved your wrist? did you tell him that you had rapid weightloss or that it constantly hurt during the nighttime? did he find a high level of calcium in your blood? if not, then there really should have been no reason for x-rays.... he had to have done some kind of orthopedic test or blood test in order to want to x-ray your elbow.... by law, a doctor needs a reason to order or perform x-rays....
 
Originally posted by: eits
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
ok, your mom's a fool. you shouldn't use peroxide on it nor should you push puss out to "keep it clean"....

what you should have done was go to the doctor's so he could have given you an antibiotic because it was probably just a strep abscess (i'm assuming because you said it was cellulitis)....

now, you've got a huge infection that's spreading and it's very dangerous.

you should go to the hospital because an increasing temperature is extremely dangerous when you've got such a huge and chronic infection.... it can lead to neurological damage, heart damage, brain damage, etc.

did the doc give you dicloxacillin or cephalexin?

you should have gotten a shot of rocephin after the diagnosis... if the doctor didn't do that, he's an idiot.
Click to expand...

:frown:

I'm on cephalexin. No shot of rocephin.

The only thing they did was asked questions, took a swab of the liquid on the wound, drew blood, gave me vicodin for the pain, took X-Rays (IDK why?) and gave me a cephalexin for then and one for the morning and told me to meet up with my regular Dr. tomorrow.
Click to expand...

yeah, go to your regular doc tomorrow. he'll probably do better than this er doc...

don't take the vicodin... that was a dumb call by the doc. you don't need vicodin for that... at best, you need 800mg ibuprofen. it's cheaper, less habit-forming, and you don't want to give habit-forming pain pills to people your age.... not that you're a pill popper or anything, but it's a good rule of thumb.... you never know who the patient will sell it to in school or if they'll develop a dependence... same with middle-aged women.

x-rays?!?! wtf?! what the hell kind of differential diagnosis was this guy working on? did it hurt when you moved your elbow or when moved your wrist? did you tell him that you had rapid weightloss or that it constantly hurt during the nighttime? did he find a high level of calcium in your blood? if not, then there really should have been no reason for x-rays....
Click to expand...

So I guess I got the screwjob. It hurt extremely bad when I moved my elbow (from the swelling, I'm guessing).

Any ideas of a cream or something that I can put on my elbow to reduce the swelling and/or the pain? I've been holding my arm over my head and it feels good for a while but then starts throbbing in pain and I have to bring it down, which leads to more pain from the movement.

I did take 1K mg Ibuprofen though. Hopefully this will be better tomorrow morning.
 
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
ok, your mom's a fool. you shouldn't use peroxide on it nor should you push puss out to "keep it clean"....

what you should have done was go to the doctor's so he could have given you an antibiotic because it was probably just a strep abscess (i'm assuming because you said it was cellulitis)....

now, you've got a huge infection that's spreading and it's very dangerous.

you should go to the hospital because an increasing temperature is extremely dangerous when you've got such a huge and chronic infection.... it can lead to neurological damage, heart damage, brain damage, etc.

did the doc give you dicloxacillin or cephalexin?

you should have gotten a shot of rocephin after the diagnosis... if the doctor didn't do that, he's an idiot.
Click to expand...

:frown:

I'm on cephalexin. No shot of rocephin.

The only thing they did was asked questions, took a swab of the liquid on the wound, drew blood, gave me vicodin for the pain, took X-Rays (IDK why?) and gave me a cephalexin for then and one for the morning and told me to meet up with my regular Dr. tomorrow.
Click to expand...

yeah, go to your regular doc tomorrow. he'll probably do better than this er doc...

don't take the vicodin... that was a dumb call by the doc. you don't need vicodin for that... at best, you need 800mg ibuprofen. it's cheaper, less habit-forming, and you don't want to give habit-forming pain pills to people your age.... not that you're a pill popper or anything, but it's a good rule of thumb.... you never know who the patient will sell it to in school or if they'll develop a dependence... same with middle-aged women.

x-rays?!?! wtf?! what the hell kind of differential diagnosis was this guy working on? did it hurt when you moved your elbow or when moved your wrist? did you tell him that you had rapid weightloss or that it constantly hurt during the nighttime? did he find a high level of calcium in your blood? if not, then there really should have been no reason for x-rays....
Click to expand...

So I guess I got the screwjob. It hurt extremely bad when I moved my elbow (from the swelling, I'm guessing).

Any ideas of a cream or something that I can put on my elbow to reduce the swelling and/or the pain? I've been holding my arm over my head and it feels good for a while but then starts throbbing in pain and I have to bring it down, which leads to more pain from the movement.

I did take 1K mg Ibuprofen though. Hopefully this will be better tomorrow morning.
Click to expand...

1k mg isn't good for you... at most, you should have 800mg... that's at MOST. i don't think anyone should have any, but different strokes, i guess (the reason why i don't think people should take nsaids (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) is because the leading cause of hospital visits of people who're middle-aged is for nsaid overuse... gastric bleeding = the side-effect of anti-inflammatories. not to mention the kidney damage.).

depending on how much you told the doctor your elbow hurt when you moved it, he might have been justified in taking the x-ray.... but it just doesn't seem to me that based on your case history and presentation that you can make the call to take an x-ray. he shoulda taken bloodwork first.

i don't know how he got a diagnosis of cellulitis without bloodwork or a biopsy, either. he just took an xray and that was it?

oh well.... cephalexin knocks out both staph and strep infections... cellulitis and a staph. aureus abscess present very similarly...

EDIT: ibuprofen kinda works on a bell curve... around 400mg is as much as you'll ever need.... it's just that more makes the patient think that it's doing more... kinda like a placebo effect. all the extra ibuprofen is doing is hurting your gastrointestinal tract, kindeys, and liver.
 
Originally posted by: eits
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
ok, your mom's a fool. you shouldn't use peroxide on it nor should you push puss out to "keep it clean"....

what you should have done was go to the doctor's so he could have given you an antibiotic because it was probably just a strep abscess (i'm assuming because you said it was cellulitis)....

now, you've got a huge infection that's spreading and it's very dangerous.

you should go to the hospital because an increasing temperature is extremely dangerous when you've got such a huge and chronic infection.... it can lead to neurological damage, heart damage, brain damage, etc.

did the doc give you dicloxacillin or cephalexin?

you should have gotten a shot of rocephin after the diagnosis... if the doctor didn't do that, he's an idiot.
Click to expand...

:frown:

I'm on cephalexin. No shot of rocephin.

The only thing they did was asked questions, took a swab of the liquid on the wound, drew blood, gave me vicodin for the pain, took X-Rays (IDK why?) and gave me a cephalexin for then and one for the morning and told me to meet up with my regular Dr. tomorrow.
Click to expand...

yeah, go to your regular doc tomorrow. he'll probably do better than this er doc...

don't take the vicodin... that was a dumb call by the doc. you don't need vicodin for that... at best, you need 800mg ibuprofen. it's cheaper, less habit-forming, and you don't want to give habit-forming pain pills to people your age.... not that you're a pill popper or anything, but it's a good rule of thumb.... you never know who the patient will sell it to in school or if they'll develop a dependence... same with middle-aged women.

x-rays?!?! wtf?! what the hell kind of differential diagnosis was this guy working on? did it hurt when you moved your elbow or when moved your wrist? did you tell him that you had rapid weightloss or that it constantly hurt during the nighttime? did he find a high level of calcium in your blood? if not, then there really should have been no reason for x-rays....
Click to expand...

So I guess I got the screwjob. It hurt extremely bad when I moved my elbow (from the swelling, I'm guessing).

Any ideas of a cream or something that I can put on my elbow to reduce the swelling and/or the pain? I've been holding my arm over my head and it feels good for a while but then starts throbbing in pain and I have to bring it down, which leads to more pain from the movement.

I did take 1K mg Ibuprofen though. Hopefully this will be better tomorrow morning.
Click to expand...

1k mg isn't good for you... at most, you should have 800mg... that's at MOST. i don't think anyone should have any, but different strokes, i guess (the reason why i don't think people should take nsaids (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) is because the leading cause of hospital visits of people who're middle-aged is for nsaid overuse... gastric bleeding = the side-effect of anti-inflammatories. not to mention the kidney damage.).

depending on how much you told the doctor your elbow hurt when you moved it, he might have been justified in taking the x-ray.... but it just doesn't seem to me that based on your case history and presentation that you can make the call to take an x-ray. he shoulda taken bloodwork first.

i don't know how he got a diagnosis of cellulitis without bloodwork or a biopsy, either. he just took an xray and that was it?

oh well.... cephalexin knocks out both staph and strep infections... cellulitis and a staph. aureus abscess present very similarly...

EDIT: ibuprofen kinda works on a bell curve... around 400mg is as much as you'll ever need.... it's just that more makes the patient think that it's doing more... kinda like a placebo effect. all the extra ibuprofen is doing is hurting your gastrointestinal tract, kindeys, and liver.
Click to expand...

It didn't hurt to the point where I was squirreling around or anything, I was just breathing hard and gritting my teeth.

Guess I screwed up on the Ibuprofen.

He took a culture and a bloodtest before doing the Xray.

Anyways, my fever has subsided, any ideas on things I can put on the wound to relieve the pain/swelling?
 
My parents also valued $$ over my health when I lived at home. Face it. Most of the time, kids are just exaggerating symptoms, trying to get out of school, etc. Kids do this constantly, and it's boy-who-cried-wolf syndrome.
 
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
Originally posted by: alexjohnson16
Originally posted by: eits
ok, your mom's a fool. you shouldn't use peroxide on it nor should you push puss out to "keep it clean"....

what you should have done was go to the doctor's so he could have given you an antibiotic because it was probably just a strep abscess (i'm assuming because you said it was cellulitis)....

now, you've got a huge infection that's spreading and it's very dangerous.

you should go to the hospital because an increasing temperature is extremely dangerous when you've got such a huge and chronic infection.... it can lead to neurological damage, heart damage, brain damage, etc.

did the doc give you dicloxacillin or cephalexin?

you should have gotten a shot of rocephin after the diagnosis... if the doctor didn't do that, he's an idiot.
Click to expand...

:frown:

I'm on cephalexin. No shot of rocephin.

The only thing they did was asked questions, took a swab of the liquid on the wound, drew blood, gave me vicodin for the pain, took X-Rays (IDK why?) and gave me a cephalexin for then and one for the morning and told me to meet up with my regular Dr. tomorrow.
Click to expand...

yeah, go to your regular doc tomorrow. he'll probably do better than this er doc...

don't take the vicodin... that was a dumb call by the doc. you don't need vicodin for that... at best, you need 800mg ibuprofen. it's cheaper, less habit-forming, and you don't want to give habit-forming pain pills to people your age.... not that you're a pill popper or anything, but it's a good rule of thumb.... you never know who the patient will sell it to in school or if they'll develop a dependence... same with middle-aged women.

x-rays?!?! wtf?! what the hell kind of differential diagnosis was this guy working on? did it hurt when you moved your elbow or when moved your wrist? did you tell him that you had rapid weightloss or that it constantly hurt during the nighttime? did he find a high level of calcium in your blood? if not, then there really should have been no reason for x-rays....
Click to expand...

So I guess I got the screwjob. It hurt extremely bad when I moved my elbow (from the swelling, I'm guessing).

Any ideas of a cream or something that I can put on my elbow to reduce the swelling and/or the pain? I've been holding my arm over my head and it feels good for a while but then starts throbbing in pain and I have to bring it down, which leads to more pain from the movement.

I did take 1K mg Ibuprofen though. Hopefully this will be better tomorrow morning.
Click to expand...

1k mg isn't good for you... at most, you should have 800mg... that's at MOST. i don't think anyone should have any, but different strokes, i guess (the reason why i don't think people should take nsaids (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) is because the leading cause of hospital visits of people who're middle-aged is for nsaid overuse... gastric bleeding = the side-effect of anti-inflammatories. not to mention the kidney damage.).

depending on how much you told the doctor your elbow hurt when you moved it, he might have been justified in taking the x-ray.... but it just doesn't seem to me that based on your case history and presentation that you can make the call to take an x-ray. he shoulda taken bloodwork first.

i don't know how he got a diagnosis of cellulitis without bloodwork or a biopsy, either. he just took an xray and that was it?

oh well.... cephalexin knocks out both staph and strep infections... cellulitis and a staph. aureus abscess present very similarly...

EDIT: ibuprofen kinda works on a bell curve... around 400mg is as much as you'll ever need.... it's just that more makes the patient think that it's doing more... kinda like a placebo effect. all the extra ibuprofen is doing is hurting your gastrointestinal tract, kindeys, and liver.
Click to expand...

It didn't hurt to the point where I was squirreling around or anything, I was just breathing hard and gritting my teeth.

Guess I screwed up on the Ibuprofen.

He took a culture and a bloodtest before doing the Xray.

Anyways, my fever has subsided, any ideas on things I can put on the wound to relieve the pain/swelling?
Click to expand...

try pain relieving neosporin. if the grocery store is open near you, go grab some. it's got some analgesics in it that help subside the pain.

something else you can do to get rid of the pain is sleep.
 
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