The Cellar - View Single Post - I expose myself with the results from my physical and blood work

glatt · 06-11-2015, 12:10 PM

I went to urgent care yesterday evening. Insect bite. Started off itchy the day before yesterday. Then yesterday morning, it was red and itchy. Then a lot redder. Then yesterday afternoon, red streaks started coming out of the itchy red spot.

So I went to urgent care after I had some pizza for dinner. Let me say, urgent care on a Thursday at 7:30 pm is a dream. I was seen right away by reception, and after filling out the form, I was taken into an exam room within 2 minutes. And I sat in there for maybe a minute before the doctor came in.

She spritzed the bite area and then dug around in there because it looked like there might have been a tiny foreign object in the puncture site. But there wasn't. Then she traced the red area and red streak. Put a bandaid on it, and gave me a prescription for a 7 day course doxycycline, and urged me to get to a pharmacy right away to take the first dose that evening.

So I did. When I went to bed, the red streak had moved from my inside elbow to about and inch up the side of my bicep. And when I woke up in the morning, and took my second dose of 14 pills, the streak had reached to halfway up my bicep. That sucker was moving fast.

I resolved to leave work at noon and go back to urgent care if the 2nd pill didn't beat back the infection. But the progress of the red streak has stopped, and it is literally fading fast. The whole bite area had gone from a fairly deep red to more of a faint pink with a red center.

I love modern medicine. But I was wondering about possible side effects of killing off most of the bacteria in my body with a 7 day course of antibiotics. My FIL got a nasty C-Diff infection after his last dose of antibiotics, and I think it wound up killing him, although the death certificate blamed heart failure. I looked up the side effects of doxycycline, and saw that around 15% of people feel nausea and 10% vomit. And the funny thing is, I've felt fine since taking these two pills, but just as I was reading these side effects, I started to feel a little wave of nausea pass over me. The power of the brain over the body is a very real thing. I'm an idiot for reading side effects.

I still wonder though if I should pick up some probiotics from the store and eat those while taking these pills to keep any possible C. Diff. in my gut from taking this opportunity to give me the shits.

06-11-2015, 12:10 PM	#13
glatt ™ Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Arlington, VA Posts: 27,717	I went to urgent care yesterday evening. Insect bite. Started off itchy the day before yesterday. Then yesterday morning, it was red and itchy. Then a lot redder. Then yesterday afternoon, red streaks started coming out of the itchy red spot. So I went to urgent care after I had some pizza for dinner. Let me say, urgent care on a Thursday at 7:30 pm is a dream. I was seen right away by reception, and after filling out the form, I was taken into an exam room within 2 minutes. And I sat in there for maybe a minute before the doctor came in. She spritzed the bite area and then dug around in there because it looked like there might have been a tiny foreign object in the puncture site. But there wasn't. Then she traced the red area and red streak. Put a bandaid on it, and gave me a prescription for a 7 day course doxycycline, and urged me to get to a pharmacy right away to take the first dose that evening. So I did. When I went to bed, the red streak had moved from my inside elbow to about and inch up the side of my bicep. And when I woke up in the morning, and took my second dose of 14 pills, the streak had reached to halfway up my bicep. That sucker was moving fast. I resolved to leave work at noon and go back to urgent care if the 2nd pill didn't beat back the infection. But the progress of the red streak has stopped, and it is literally fading fast. The whole bite area had gone from a fairly deep red to more of a faint pink with a red center. I love modern medicine. But I was wondering about possible side effects of killing off most of the bacteria in my body with a 7 day course of antibiotics. My FIL got a nasty C-Diff infection after his last dose of antibiotics, and I think it wound up killing him, although the death certificate blamed heart failure. I looked up the side effects of doxycycline, and saw that around 15% of people feel nausea and 10% vomit. And the funny thing is, I've felt fine since taking these two pills, but just as I was reading these side effects, I started to feel a little wave of nausea pass over me. The power of the brain over the body is a very real thing. I'm an idiot for reading side effects. I still wonder though if I should pick up some probiotics from the store and eat those while taking these pills to keep any possible C. Diff. in my gut from taking this opportunity to give me the shits.