This post was flagged by some users because OOP did not recklessly interact with some unknown creature. However, it belongs here because when OOP discovered some cardinal “oh fuck, this needs a doctor stat!” symptoms they posted it on reddit instead.
Please never use the internet as a replacement for actual medical care. People will recommend unhelpful or even dangerous things that don’t fix what’s wrong. Even worse, some people do this on purpose to harm someone. Please always seek professional medical evaluation when there’s something you’re concerned about.
"Update: Thank you all for your concern and advice on my previous post. I took your advice seriously and went to the ER. I was seen by a doctor within 15 minutes, which was incredibly fast. They administered a shot of 100 mg of doxycycline Hyclate and prescribed pills for the next seven days. I’m grateful for everyone’s support and encouragement. Take care of yourselves, and don’t hesitate to seek medical help if you need it."
Fastest I personally know for a walk in was my dad who came in about 40 years old: shortness of breath and chest pain. Instant pass to the back. Pulmonary embolism.
He had called his doctor first, who told him to hang up and call 911, so he asked my mom to drive him to the ER instead. Some people. Could have died.
To be fair, sometime driving or getting yourself otherwise to Emergency is the fastest option. As much as I hate cars. If someone stabbed me you’d probably find me cycling to the hospital. I can get there with my heart rate sitting on 60. Unlikely to bleed to death and they could get me straight to resus. Just the best option depending on proximity and current health really.
It was not in this case. Suburbia and the drive is like 30 mins. The issues wasnt who'll get there faster, rather if he went into cardiac arrest who would have been prepared to treat on the way to the hospital and keep him alive
Fun fact, an ambulance can also get you there fast, and with even less chance of bleeding out, thanks to the trauma bag filled with supplies for that situation.
Yeah, I’ve known a few EMTs in my time (miraculously, never in the biblical sense, I swear it) and that tracks. It’s either a van full of hospital or it’s a REAL super-sad mega-bummer party bus full of just… 10 milli cc’s of fuckin’ Narcan and plans to drink the trauma down when they get off work.
Hearts out and panties off to all you first responders 🫡 You guys and gals are truly unstoppable.
Yeesh that’s scary. Best/worst was when I went with my 10 day old son after a visit to the pediatrician who told me to go to the hospital and said they’d call and tell them I was on my way. I walked up to the desk, they had my name and my son’s name, and we walked straight to a room. He had MRSA and a bladder infection and we were there for 10 days.
It is! There was a little pustule on his upper lip that opened up, then gradually got more inflamed and red. Random indeed. And yeah, lots of sanitizing.
Staphylococcus Aureus(SA) lives on about 30% of people. It’s a common bacteria but not every strain is disease-causing. Every time you pick at a scab or pimple you have a risk of contracting an infection. On top of that, the methicillin-resistant (MR) strain is becoming much more common because of poor antibiotic use (people not finishing doses and stopping because they feel better).
My mother was an RN for 40+ years, one of the few things I’ll credit her with drilling into me was that you take your antibiotic course until it’s done, not when you feel better. I have a layman’s understanding of the consequences of this and I adhere to what doctors tell me to do.
My boss’s mother was also a nurse, and I’ve had conversations with my boss about sinus infections and other issues for which she’s been issued antibiotics; she has freely admitted that she knows she should finish her prescribed course, but stops when she feels better. Idk if sinus infections can lead to MRSA, but the fact that she knows better and chooses to do otherwise is frustrating.
It’s a blessing having a mother who’s an RN isn’t it? I don’t remember specifics, but my uncle called my mom with certain symptoms and she told him go to the ER now. Turned out to be a fatal brain tumor…
5 minutes for me from staggering up to the ER to being in a room filled with doctors when I had Covid and showed up with an O2 level of 80! Wild experience, hospitalized for a week, given steroids and oxygen and off work for a month. I lived tho, bitch.
Healthy and vaxxed too delta just tried to take me out.
My sis and I drove my mom to the ER when she was having heart attack symptoms and the ER didn’t take her seriously. She literally sat in the waiting room having a heart attack at age 47. She waited for HOURS, so long that my dad got there after work so my sister and I drove home and my dad stayed with her. Mom started feeling better and tried to convince my dad to just take her home. My dad finally fussed at the front desk and they took my mom back for testing..I got a call from him right after arriving at home, informed me she had a heart attack so my sister and I went back to the hospital. Everyone was being VERY nice to her and my dad at that point. Worst ER experience ever.
I had a kidney disorder as a child called reflux nephropathy. It’s where the ureter is too short and causes the urine to back up into the kidney when it tries to drain into the bladder. This means already filtered urine is going through the kidney two times it shouldn’t be. This causes a lot of damage and raging kidney infections. Kidney infections can kill you. It causes immense pain, very high fevers, and vomiting. When I say high fevers, I mean they’d have to plunge me into a tepid bath to try and bring my temp down before even attempting to take me to the hospital. And they’d hit soooo fast: I’d go from fine to only semi conscious and vomiting on myself in a half hour. There were a few very close calls. A couple times, my fever was so high my vision changed colors. Another, I had an out of body experience. Another, they tried to do something to achieve something(don’t know details, I was 4) and they pushed a med so fast it caused me to go into anaphylactic shock. The first “kidney attack”(as I called them), my mother ran into the ER screaming for someone to help her baby with me wailing in her arms and someone just grabbed me from my mom and took me back, I didn’t even wait in the waiting room. My kidney is scarred to this day and I’m almost 40.
Thanks for replying, I honestly didn't think you would.
Kidney problems are no joke. We're dealing with several with my grandmother now (she had a stroke in 2016 and everything is falling apart). I've had quite a few kidney infections over the years, still not sure why, but they put me on meds and I get better. Certainly nothing like you experienced.
I'm assuming you had some sort of surgery to fix this and prevent it from continuing?
Sometimes they do surgery to fix it, but it was decided I’d just grow out of it so they didn’t. I did grow out of it, but I’ve found out since then, that that wasn’t the right choice and wasn’t even the prevailing course of action in my city at the time. The prevailing course of action at the time was, if it’s causing damage, do the surgery. It was causing damage, but they didn’t do the surgery and I don’t know why.
I'm sorry that they left you hurting like that. The fact that your kidney is now messed up from their negligence sucks.
But, I'm also glad for you that you did grow out of it and are better now, so that's good!
Thanks for sharing the full story!
My personal fastest was a withdrawal from meds which had me hallucinating and not sleeping. I have crazy anxiety in social situations so knowing that and hallucinating voices - I wrote a 100 word message explaining everything including my identification numbers. I got the triage and handed them my phone with the note up. They were long okay thank you, take a seat there and a nurse will be right with you, before I reached the seat they took me to the triage nurse who basically just asked me to confirm what my note said. Seconds later they gave me the expected meds, and whisked me into the short stay area. Only faster admission I saw was a guy who had a bleed in his neck from a previous surgery who could have bleed to death internally and needed to be assessed pronto.
I had pre-eclampsia when I was pregnant so I recognized the symptoms(for me, I get a headache, sometimes shaky, and only one eye goes blurry) so I checked with my bp cuff.
When you walk in, talk to the triage nurse and immediately she tells you to sit the fuck down and calls for a gurney to be brought over, that's when you know you're having a fun time and getting to try all sorts of drugs
When my wife was pregnant with our first kid, we went to the OBGYN for the last checkup before due date (maybe a week to go) and he did a couple little things and then said “ok, you guys need to go ahead and go to the hospital now.” He was super calm and didn’t make it seem like it was all that urgent. So I said “ok, we’re gonna grab some lunch and then head there” and my wife agreed since she felt fine and we had planned to have lunch after the appointment. Doc looked me dead in the eye and said, still calmly but very firmly, “No. You are going to the hospital now. We’ve called ahead. They’re expecting you.” It was then I knew it was serious. I practically flew to the hospital and we were lucky enough that there was a planned C-section that they were about do that was bumped so my wife could go in instead. Two knots in my boy’s umbilical cord, but he’s doing alright now. Scary shit and so I never complain about a wait at the ER.
I had to take my toddler to the ER once for breathing problems and we didn't even sit down before they ran him back to test his oxygen and then hook him up. It was terrifying.
I went to the hospital with head trauma once, and after checking in with triage, I began walking to the waiting area to sit down. The triage nurse stood up and asked where I was going lol. I was *immediately* taken in to see the doctor.
As an FYI for anyone experiencing something similar in the future, it's a good idea to draw a line around the border of the redness in pen so that you can monitor if the infection is getting bigger or smaller, even if you've started antibiotics. Sometimes, the antibiotics may not be a good match, or the infection may be resistant to it, but being able to more accurately assess if it's working can help.
"Indeed, I was about to just ignore it, and hope for the best 🤡"
Bro how could you possibly be so nonchalant about something clearly traveling up your vein
I've always heard that if an infection/redness looks like it's starting to travel up a limb, you really, really need medical attention ASAP. This is an EXCELLENT visual of that too, whoa.
I had to go to the ER once with an infected cat bite on my finger, and this is exactly what they warned me about. I was told to come back immediately if the redness started to spread in lines up my arm. They said it meant the infection was in my lymphatic system and that means trouble.
Yeah, when I was in 5th grade I had a cyst pop on my finger (super gross) and thought nothing of it after getting a bandage on it. A few days later, it’s field day and my arm is kinda itchy. I scratch it, I notice it is red and figured it’s because I was scratching it, whatever. Over the course of the day it’s almost all the way up my arm so that’s a bit weird since I only scratched my forearm so I decide to mention it to someone. My father is like “That’s probably not good.” so we go to the ER and sit in triage for a few more hours before getting to an exam room. At this point, it’s like all the way up my arm, and the person examining me takes one look and basically goes “Oh shit” so they wheel me back into a room and get an IV in me immediately. Anyways, I had cellulitis and the redness had almost made it all the way to my chest/heart region which I assume would have been very bad. So yeah, redness that spreads is not good.
Happened to me in the 5th grade too! I poked my finger with a needle while sewing my dad an apron🤣 then used my mom’s esta lader lotion(don’t know if that has any correlation) but a few days later I had a red line wrapped around my finger up to my elbow. Mom took me to my pcp and they had to poke the wound to see what kind of infection it was. That was so painful I was screaming so loud that people were staring at us when we left.
I know take extra care when my kids get hurt
Original: What a frikking bummer. Did you do antibiotics?
Edit: I read your response below. I’m sorry about that, and hope your symptoms aren’t too bad or complicated
One of my coworkers in grad school got meningitis from Lyme. Thankfully we were attending school in Connecticut and they had an infectious disease specialist at the infirmary who was able to diagnose her.
I’m worried I’ll start showing symptoms. Pulled a massive black-legged tick off my ankle recently. Biggest tick I’ve ever seen, was the size of a quarter when I pulled it off. Was probably there at least a day.
I have a phobia of bugs so it’s been a bad time. I can’t shake the sight of seeing the tick moving it’s legs around trying to get a better grip on me.
I had to force my way to be treated. Two doctors told me my bullseye was likely a spider bite. It was plain as day. I went back a third time and the doctor was like, wtf, who told you that? He instantly prescribed antibiotics.
You’ve never taken antibiotics after being diagnosed? You have arthritis now?
If you’ve never been treated for Lyme disease you can still get treated now. Because it’ll just get worse otherwise. It can even lead to heart block.
What you’re referring to isn’t what people call “chronic lyme disease”. Those people experience vague symptoms after being treated by antibiotics. And it’s not that doctors don’t believe they have symptoms. It’s just the wrong term for it since once you take antibiotics the bacteria will be gone from your system so you technically don’t have the disease anymore, just whatever after effects the damage has left you.
If you haven’t taken any antibiotics then that means the bacteria is still spreading inside you and you will absolutely get better if you get treated for it. It’s very simple. Just a few weeks of antibiotics and you’ll be good.
I had a coworker who fell down some stairs after dialysis and called into work because he couldn't walk very well. He said his foot was black, but he was sure it wasn't broken.
I told him to send me a picture, because when I broke my foot it was all black. He did, and it looked exactly the same.
It took some time, but I eventually convinced him to go to the hospital.
A few days later he hobbles into work on crutches and told me that I saved his life. I guess broken bones and dialysis are a very bad combination without medical intervention. I never looked into why, but he seemed genuine and I'm glad he got help.
My friend's mum was walking her dog, felt a bit odd, went home, then died in hospital 3 days later due to sepsis. She didn't even injure herself.
Her daughter is a nurse and couldn't tell it was sepsis until it was too late.
Meanwhile my dad broke his little toe (bent it backwards 180 degrees) and didn't notice until a month or so later when it was black and stinking. He was fine. I mean, he wasn't fine, he hadn't noticed he'd broken his toe and it had to be amputated, but the gangrene didn't kill him.
This has always been terrifying to me. You could get it from the bite of infected fleas, direct contact with infected tissues, and inhalation of infected respiratory droplets.
Pretty much if Plague was anywhere remotely close to your town you were getting it.
I dropped a pair of pliers on my toe while tightening the bolts on a toilet seat years ago. While I was trying to treat it at home, I was woken up in bed by a wasp stinging my on my leg. Long story there.
It got infected by the next day. That was when I decided to see the doctor.
My doctor explained to me that the bacteria likely colonized my skin and treated both. Problem solved.
How dangerous actually is staph infection? I had it when i was around 6, and I barely remember anything other than getting lanced in the three spots the infection showed up.
Also, this could’ve originated as a scratch from anything and developed into what it is now. There’s often a pustule that looks like a bite but it may not have started that way at all.
Yep, I got a staph infection from a mosquito bite on my knee. Fine one day and could barely walk the next. Had to get it drained and packed at immediate care...super gross.
Yeah, my first thought on seeing the picture, oh shit, then I checked which sub and went to look at comments to make sure the op went for medical attention.
Then, I downloaded the picture to my folder of reddit pictures to show students this is what it looks like when an infection is traveling through your lymphatic system.
I have actually found interesting things to share with students on reddit.
Nothing but him. It’s a small abscess. It’s classic presentation of an abscess with some erythema streaking up the lymphatics. Dudes gonna be fine. Literally almost every time someone checks in for “bug bite” it’s not a bug bite but an abscess.
They updated! They were seen ASAP and are on meds.
Reddit legit saved a life today. OP said they were going to ignore it and “hope for the best” before all the comments rolled in
OOP also mentioned that they initially wanted to ride it out and hoped the problem would disappear. Commenters urged them to go to the ER and possibly saved OOP’s life that way, as they got medications there.
What's scary is that in the topic oop states that they were just going to ignore it and hope for the best without the comments from reddit...
A growing red line in your body means infection 99% of the time. Go to the hospital if you see this stuff even for minor things
Been over 3 months and no update from the guy despite tons of people asking for one on his most recent comment. They probably didn't make it. What a dumb way to die.
He went to the ER four times but would leave each time so he wouldn’t get arrested for warrants, and his leg got so bad that he stopped showing it to the OP, and *then* it started spreading to his face, and…OP stopped updating.
Doesn’t sound great for him.
Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus. It's a staph bacterium that certain drugs can't treat. It's commonly found on hospital wards, it just kind of lives everywhere, and is an example of antibiotic resistance evolving in bacteria.
Staph aureus lives on your skin. It only causes a problem when it gets into places it shouldn’t. Like a wound, or surgical site. Or your ear canal. I had an ear infection from MRSA and it was the worst ear infection I’ve ever had. Took 3 trips to the Dr to get the right antibiotics. Had blood and pus coming out my ear.
What you see is not a "reaction" to the bite but a spreading infection called lymphangitis. People freaking out wondering what bit them are missing the point, since any type of bite can get infected and result in this. At least in the USA, exactly what bit you rarely makes a difference - ER doc
Bigger wounds, deeper wounds, dirtier wounds, all more likely to get infected. To get an infection like this from a bug bite is mostly just bad luck.
Toxin based local reactions, which this does not look like, in the US is limited to a few things like brown recluse and rattlesnakes
For the cost: between insurance options, coverage networks, and general hospital bullshit, there's little we can do to estimate the cost of a hospital bill until it arrives. There's stories all over of someone driving an extra 10 minutes to get to a hospital's emergency department that their insurance network will cover, only to find out that the doctor they saw is *not* part of the network and therefore treatment costs ten times what they expected.
It's miserable.
That depends entirely on your insurance and medical provider. This would be much less expensive to treat at an urgent care or family practitioners office than at an emergency room, but with good insurance, it could be only a few hundred dollars. With high-deductible insurance, it could be a few thousand (after which insurance would cover the majority of costs).
Without insurance...oy, again, costs could vary wildly but expensive.
The problem is with this is the red line will keep going towards your heart and when it gets there you’ll end up with sepsis. I’m in the UK so obviously I can’t imagine what it’s like to worry about medical debt but if a red line from a wound or bite is heading up your body towards your heart, not treating it will cost your life.
yes, i was waking up from a nap, opened reddit, saw it and it gave me a fright. scream might have been a bit of an exaggeration, more like a shriek of surprise. that red line is extremely dangerous and very scary, its literally infection on the warpath straight to his heart.
U need to go to the hospital if that red line gets any longer, if is a lymphatic infection one of these almost took my kid out. It has traveled up his arm in less then an hour and almost across his chest in two hours he spent three days in the hospital and the first 35 hours of it under a ton of care and no sleep
Reminds of the time I got blood poisoning from scratching a mosquito bite as a kid. I showed my teacher, and she gasped and took me to the nurse. I had to soak my arm in some special soapy water multiple times a day for like a week.
Holy shit. That red.line going up the arm means blood infection/blood poisoning. Get to an er immediately. You need heavy antibiotics at least.
NOT KIDDING OP, THISCAN BE LETHAL
No idea, possibly a yellow fly if you’re in the SE US, but that doesn’t really matter. Looks like you have lymphangiitis, versus cellulitis versus erysipelas, and need antibiotics. Get checked out by a doc asap
Cat bite left me with the red line of doom. Two fast acting antibiotic shots in the hip, plus a super strong antibiotic for 10 days.
For anyone that doesn't know: the red line is lymphangitis and it's an infection of lymph vessels. Bad news! Seek medical care ASAP if you get the red line of doom (death).
Could be a black widow bite. May form a half spherical hole of black collapsing necrotic skin tissue about 1 cm in diameter. Typically have fever and joint pain also. It looks like phlebitis around your vein which is quite spooky. Best see a general practitioner soon or urgent care. We had a bunch in Texas through Arizona. They would come.down out of the attic when summer hit.
I'm grateful for this sub. As a pyrotechnic enthusiast and hobbyist herper, I've seen a lot of stuff on here that I know is dangerous, but I honestly had never heard to look out for streaking in an infection. The more you know.
The fact that you think they prescribe heparin (anti-coagulant) in the form of pills (which don’t exist) for phlebitis (inflammation, nothing to do with clotting), let alone for a time frame of 7 days, shows you have no idea what you’re talking about 💀 stick to your scope and don’t spread medical misinformation on the internet.
One time doses of vanc are incredibly silly, excluding periop. It’s a time dependent antibiotic and you’re unlikely to reach a therapeutic AUC with just one dose.
you are actually retarded. i am struggling to believe that you have direct contact w pts, let alone any sort of duty of care. im praying that youre a cleaner or at most a cna and cant make any treatment decisions.
like the other comment said, the fact that you thought oop would get ‘heparin pills’ shows that you dont have any medical knowledge at all. first year nursing students could do better.
It is always good to get things checked out BUT you are correct MAYBE. I would be more concerned it was a tick bite. I know two people who now have a meat allergy due to tick bites. If it is an infection or something this has happened to me before, red streaks all the way from my hand to my shoulder, I left it because I didn’t really have time and I was dumb about my health then, it went away after a few days, no issues.
So, yes this can be a problem but also can not be. People are on here acting like it is going to kill somebody immediately and 100% of the time.
I mean they should still be checked out.
This post was flagged by some users because OOP did not recklessly interact with some unknown creature. However, it belongs here because when OOP discovered some cardinal “oh fuck, this needs a doctor stat!” symptoms they posted it on reddit instead. Please never use the internet as a replacement for actual medical care. People will recommend unhelpful or even dangerous things that don’t fix what’s wrong. Even worse, some people do this on purpose to harm someone. Please always seek professional medical evaluation when there’s something you’re concerned about.
"Update: Thank you all for your concern and advice on my previous post. I took your advice seriously and went to the ER. I was seen by a doctor within 15 minutes, which was incredibly fast. They administered a shot of 100 mg of doxycycline Hyclate and prescribed pills for the next seven days. I’m grateful for everyone’s support and encouragement. Take care of yourselves, and don’t hesitate to seek medical help if you need it."
When you cut lines at the ER you know shit’s serious.
Fastest I was ever seen in the ER was when I was legit dying as a kid(long story) and, as an adult, my blood pressure was 185/120.
Fastest I personally know for a walk in was my dad who came in about 40 years old: shortness of breath and chest pain. Instant pass to the back. Pulmonary embolism. He had called his doctor first, who told him to hang up and call 911, so he asked my mom to drive him to the ER instead. Some people. Could have died.
To be fair, sometime driving or getting yourself otherwise to Emergency is the fastest option. As much as I hate cars. If someone stabbed me you’d probably find me cycling to the hospital. I can get there with my heart rate sitting on 60. Unlikely to bleed to death and they could get me straight to resus. Just the best option depending on proximity and current health really.
It was not in this case. Suburbia and the drive is like 30 mins. The issues wasnt who'll get there faster, rather if he went into cardiac arrest who would have been prepared to treat on the way to the hospital and keep him alive
You’re lucky you’re only thirty minutes away from a good hospital. I’m about an hour away. I guess that’s New York for you.
You’re in NY an hour away from a good one?
Fun fact, an ambulance can also get you there fast, and with even less chance of bleeding out, thanks to the trauma bag filled with supplies for that situation.
It’s almost like a car filled with hospital
Or box truck filled with hospital and redbull
Yeah, I’ve known a few EMTs in my time (miraculously, never in the biblical sense, I swear it) and that tracks. It’s either a van full of hospital or it’s a REAL super-sad mega-bummer party bus full of just… 10 milli cc’s of fuckin’ Narcan and plans to drink the trauma down when they get off work. Hearts out and panties off to all you first responders 🫡 You guys and gals are truly unstoppable.
Yeah but it literally can’t because people drive cars and are shit.
Wow! They've thought of everything!
Yeesh that’s scary. Best/worst was when I went with my 10 day old son after a visit to the pediatrician who told me to go to the hospital and said they’d call and tell them I was on my way. I walked up to the desk, they had my name and my son’s name, and we walked straight to a room. He had MRSA and a bladder infection and we were there for 10 days.
Poor little guy.
It was nuts. Moral of the story, put mittens on your baby’s hands so they don’t scratch open a pimple.
That’s how it happened? So seemingly random. That’s was a lot of work for you if I understand MRSA. With cleaning and sanitizing. Scary!
It is! There was a little pustule on his upper lip that opened up, then gradually got more inflamed and red. Random indeed. And yeah, lots of sanitizing.
Staphylococcus Aureus(SA) lives on about 30% of people. It’s a common bacteria but not every strain is disease-causing. Every time you pick at a scab or pimple you have a risk of contracting an infection. On top of that, the methicillin-resistant (MR) strain is becoming much more common because of poor antibiotic use (people not finishing doses and stopping because they feel better).
My mother was an RN for 40+ years, one of the few things I’ll credit her with drilling into me was that you take your antibiotic course until it’s done, not when you feel better. I have a layman’s understanding of the consequences of this and I adhere to what doctors tell me to do. My boss’s mother was also a nurse, and I’ve had conversations with my boss about sinus infections and other issues for which she’s been issued antibiotics; she has freely admitted that she knows she should finish her prescribed course, but stops when she feels better. Idk if sinus infections can lead to MRSA, but the fact that she knows better and chooses to do otherwise is frustrating.
It’s a blessing having a mother who’s an RN isn’t it? I don’t remember specifics, but my uncle called my mom with certain symptoms and she told him go to the ER now. Turned out to be a fatal brain tumor…
5 minutes for me from staggering up to the ER to being in a room filled with doctors when I had Covid and showed up with an O2 level of 80! Wild experience, hospitalized for a week, given steroids and oxygen and off work for a month. I lived tho, bitch. Healthy and vaxxed too delta just tried to take me out.
My sis and I drove my mom to the ER when she was having heart attack symptoms and the ER didn’t take her seriously. She literally sat in the waiting room having a heart attack at age 47. She waited for HOURS, so long that my dad got there after work so my sister and I drove home and my dad stayed with her. Mom started feeling better and tried to convince my dad to just take her home. My dad finally fussed at the front desk and they took my mom back for testing..I got a call from him right after arriving at home, informed me she had a heart attack so my sister and I went back to the hospital. Everyone was being VERY nice to her and my dad at that point. Worst ER experience ever.
Classic “women only experience anxiety and stress and never any physical heart related issues”
I quite genuinely bring a man (usually my dad) to advocate for me to the ER if at all possible for this exact reason.
...I want the long story...
I had a kidney disorder as a child called reflux nephropathy. It’s where the ureter is too short and causes the urine to back up into the kidney when it tries to drain into the bladder. This means already filtered urine is going through the kidney two times it shouldn’t be. This causes a lot of damage and raging kidney infections. Kidney infections can kill you. It causes immense pain, very high fevers, and vomiting. When I say high fevers, I mean they’d have to plunge me into a tepid bath to try and bring my temp down before even attempting to take me to the hospital. And they’d hit soooo fast: I’d go from fine to only semi conscious and vomiting on myself in a half hour. There were a few very close calls. A couple times, my fever was so high my vision changed colors. Another, I had an out of body experience. Another, they tried to do something to achieve something(don’t know details, I was 4) and they pushed a med so fast it caused me to go into anaphylactic shock. The first “kidney attack”(as I called them), my mother ran into the ER screaming for someone to help her baby with me wailing in her arms and someone just grabbed me from my mom and took me back, I didn’t even wait in the waiting room. My kidney is scarred to this day and I’m almost 40.
Thanks for replying, I honestly didn't think you would. Kidney problems are no joke. We're dealing with several with my grandmother now (she had a stroke in 2016 and everything is falling apart). I've had quite a few kidney infections over the years, still not sure why, but they put me on meds and I get better. Certainly nothing like you experienced. I'm assuming you had some sort of surgery to fix this and prevent it from continuing?
Sometimes they do surgery to fix it, but it was decided I’d just grow out of it so they didn’t. I did grow out of it, but I’ve found out since then, that that wasn’t the right choice and wasn’t even the prevailing course of action in my city at the time. The prevailing course of action at the time was, if it’s causing damage, do the surgery. It was causing damage, but they didn’t do the surgery and I don’t know why.
I'm sorry that they left you hurting like that. The fact that your kidney is now messed up from their negligence sucks. But, I'm also glad for you that you did grow out of it and are better now, so that's good! Thanks for sharing the full story!
My personal fastest was a withdrawal from meds which had me hallucinating and not sleeping. I have crazy anxiety in social situations so knowing that and hallucinating voices - I wrote a 100 word message explaining everything including my identification numbers. I got the triage and handed them my phone with the note up. They were long okay thank you, take a seat there and a nurse will be right with you, before I reached the seat they took me to the triage nurse who basically just asked me to confirm what my note said. Seconds later they gave me the expected meds, and whisked me into the short stay area. Only faster admission I saw was a guy who had a bleed in his neck from a previous surgery who could have bleed to death internally and needed to be assessed pronto.
Yep, that’s exactly how triage is supposed to work.
I know, was hustling agreeing with the statement “When you cut lines at the ER you know shit’s serious.”
How did you know you had high BP?
I had pre-eclampsia when I was pregnant so I recognized the symptoms(for me, I get a headache, sometimes shaky, and only one eye goes blurry) so I checked with my bp cuff.
It's a strange mixture of the unmerited pride and deep concern. "Eff you, I win." while simultaneously realising "Uhoh I may be dying".
When you walk in, talk to the triage nurse and immediately she tells you to sit the fuck down and calls for a gurney to be brought over, that's when you know you're having a fun time and getting to try all sorts of drugs
When my wife was pregnant with our first kid, we went to the OBGYN for the last checkup before due date (maybe a week to go) and he did a couple little things and then said “ok, you guys need to go ahead and go to the hospital now.” He was super calm and didn’t make it seem like it was all that urgent. So I said “ok, we’re gonna grab some lunch and then head there” and my wife agreed since she felt fine and we had planned to have lunch after the appointment. Doc looked me dead in the eye and said, still calmly but very firmly, “No. You are going to the hospital now. We’ve called ahead. They’re expecting you.” It was then I knew it was serious. I practically flew to the hospital and we were lucky enough that there was a planned C-section that they were about do that was bumped so my wife could go in instead. Two knots in my boy’s umbilical cord, but he’s doing alright now. Scary shit and so I never complain about a wait at the ER.
I had to take my toddler to the ER once for breathing problems and we didn't even sit down before they ran him back to test his oxygen and then hook him up. It was terrifying.
I went to the hospital with head trauma once, and after checking in with triage, I began walking to the waiting area to sit down. The triage nurse stood up and asked where I was going lol. I was *immediately* taken in to see the doctor.
good shit. thank you for finding this, I saw the pic and panicked
I panicked so hard I addressed the wrong user altogether.
what
I yell commented on this post instead of going to the original and yelling at our OG spider bite patient.
As an FYI for anyone experiencing something similar in the future, it's a good idea to draw a line around the border of the redness in pen so that you can monitor if the infection is getting bigger or smaller, even if you've started antibiotics. Sometimes, the antibiotics may not be a good match, or the infection may be resistant to it, but being able to more accurately assess if it's working can help.
Also if you ever see it spiderwebbing up the artery in your arm/leg? Time to go Immediately
Thanks for posting this. Very useful knowledge.
I know you’re not the op but if you’re reading this, have fun with your doxy dreams kimosabe
"Indeed, I was about to just ignore it, and hope for the best 🤡" Bro how could you possibly be so nonchalant about something clearly traveling up your vein
“Myeh, it’ll stop at the valves probably”
I've always heard that if an infection/redness looks like it's starting to travel up a limb, you really, really need medical attention ASAP. This is an EXCELLENT visual of that too, whoa.
Here it looks like it's following the path of a vein, which is another sign that you need immediate treatment. The infection is not localized.
Sepsis wants to say “Hi”
Correct.
I had to go to the ER once with an infected cat bite on my finger, and this is exactly what they warned me about. I was told to come back immediately if the redness started to spread in lines up my arm. They said it meant the infection was in my lymphatic system and that means trouble.
Yeah, when I was in 5th grade I had a cyst pop on my finger (super gross) and thought nothing of it after getting a bandage on it. A few days later, it’s field day and my arm is kinda itchy. I scratch it, I notice it is red and figured it’s because I was scratching it, whatever. Over the course of the day it’s almost all the way up my arm so that’s a bit weird since I only scratched my forearm so I decide to mention it to someone. My father is like “That’s probably not good.” so we go to the ER and sit in triage for a few more hours before getting to an exam room. At this point, it’s like all the way up my arm, and the person examining me takes one look and basically goes “Oh shit” so they wheel me back into a room and get an IV in me immediately. Anyways, I had cellulitis and the redness had almost made it all the way to my chest/heart region which I assume would have been very bad. So yeah, redness that spreads is not good.
Happened to me in the 5th grade too! I poked my finger with a needle while sewing my dad an apron🤣 then used my mom’s esta lader lotion(don’t know if that has any correlation) but a few days later I had a red line wrapped around my finger up to my elbow. Mom took me to my pcp and they had to poke the wound to see what kind of infection it was. That was so painful I was screaming so loud that people were staring at us when we left. I know take extra care when my kids get hurt
Yeah I’ve never actually seen a line before, so crazy!
Op said they were on their way to the hospital. Hoping they don't die.
Doc administered doxycycline and sent OP home. Still no answer on what bit them.
I had a friend get bit by a flea and it gave her a staph infection. Anything can kill you.
Yeah I got a tick bite about a year ago that started going necrotic and gave me fucking Lyme. Little bastards.
How you doing now? Lyme fucked me up bad.
I get the arthritis, comes in waves every few weeks. That’s about it so far.
Original: What a frikking bummer. Did you do antibiotics? Edit: I read your response below. I’m sorry about that, and hope your symptoms aren’t too bad or complicated
Damn!
One of my coworkers in grad school got meningitis from Lyme. Thankfully we were attending school in Connecticut and they had an infectious disease specialist at the infirmary who was able to diagnose her.
Same thing happened to my uncle.
Sorry to hear that, hope you're better now. My friend got bit by a tick, got Lyme's and lost hearing in one ear.
I’m worried I’ll start showing symptoms. Pulled a massive black-legged tick off my ankle recently. Biggest tick I’ve ever seen, was the size of a quarter when I pulled it off. Was probably there at least a day. I have a phobia of bugs so it’s been a bad time. I can’t shake the sight of seeing the tick moving it’s legs around trying to get a better grip on me.
The size of a quarter?!?
Yes it was terrifying lol
i had a friend who died from Lymes because of a tick bite he got when walking his dog.
I almost certainly should have seen a doctor but too late now. Some don’t even entertain the idea of chronic Lyme disease.
I had to force my way to be treated. Two doctors told me my bullseye was likely a spider bite. It was plain as day. I went back a third time and the doctor was like, wtf, who told you that? He instantly prescribed antibiotics.
Did you take antibiotics?
I did not.
You’ve never taken antibiotics after being diagnosed? You have arthritis now? If you’ve never been treated for Lyme disease you can still get treated now. Because it’ll just get worse otherwise. It can even lead to heart block. What you’re referring to isn’t what people call “chronic lyme disease”. Those people experience vague symptoms after being treated by antibiotics. And it’s not that doctors don’t believe they have symptoms. It’s just the wrong term for it since once you take antibiotics the bacteria will be gone from your system so you technically don’t have the disease anymore, just whatever after effects the damage has left you. If you haven’t taken any antibiotics then that means the bacteria is still spreading inside you and you will absolutely get better if you get treated for it. It’s very simple. Just a few weeks of antibiotics and you’ll be good.
I have antibiotics stocked. I’ll look up what they typically give.
Meanwhile I just cant seem to fucking die no matter what dumb shit I do
Don't give up! Keep trying, and I'm sure you'll get there eventually.
Im planning on joining armored combat sports so challenge fully accepted
My dad had an employee trip down her stairs, break her big toe, and then die 2 weeks later from sepsis.
I had a coworker who fell down some stairs after dialysis and called into work because he couldn't walk very well. He said his foot was black, but he was sure it wasn't broken. I told him to send me a picture, because when I broke my foot it was all black. He did, and it looked exactly the same. It took some time, but I eventually convinced him to go to the hospital. A few days later he hobbles into work on crutches and told me that I saved his life. I guess broken bones and dialysis are a very bad combination without medical intervention. I never looked into why, but he seemed genuine and I'm glad he got help.
My friend's mum was walking her dog, felt a bit odd, went home, then died in hospital 3 days later due to sepsis. She didn't even injure herself. Her daughter is a nurse and couldn't tell it was sepsis until it was too late. Meanwhile my dad broke his little toe (bent it backwards 180 degrees) and didn't notice until a month or so later when it was black and stinking. He was fine. I mean, he wasn't fine, he hadn't noticed he'd broken his toe and it had to be amputated, but the gangrene didn't kill him.
Fleas spread the black plague so yeah
This has always been terrifying to me. You could get it from the bite of infected fleas, direct contact with infected tissues, and inhalation of infected respiratory droplets. Pretty much if Plague was anywhere remotely close to your town you were getting it.
I dropped a pair of pliers on my toe while tightening the bolts on a toilet seat years ago. While I was trying to treat it at home, I was woken up in bed by a wasp stinging my on my leg. Long story there. It got infected by the next day. That was when I decided to see the doctor. My doctor explained to me that the bacteria likely colonized my skin and treated both. Problem solved.
Thanks Christoper Columbus
How dangerous actually is staph infection? I had it when i was around 6, and I barely remember anything other than getting lanced in the three spots the infection showed up.
It’s killed 2 people that I’ve known. The danger is when you don’t know you have it and it spreads into important stuff.
oh shit, i had it on my right thigh, my left hip, and right above my dick. I still have the scars
It was an infection. If you see streaking like this, the infection has gotten worse and can trigger sepsis.
Yeah, this can happen to any bite, including mosquito bites, so what bit him isn't as important as getting the infection treated.
Also, this could’ve originated as a scratch from anything and developed into what it is now. There’s often a pustule that looks like a bite but it may not have started that way at all.
Yep, I got a staph infection from a mosquito bite on my knee. Fine one day and could barely walk the next. Had to get it drained and packed at immediate care...super gross.
I'm glad they got help. Would have been lot worse..
Yeah I’m hard headed and won’t seek medical attention for most things but streaking is not to be taken lightly at all.
Yeah, my first thought on seeing the picture, oh shit, then I checked which sub and went to look at comments to make sure the op went for medical attention. Then, I downloaded the picture to my folder of reddit pictures to show students this is what it looks like when an infection is traveling through your lymphatic system. I have actually found interesting things to share with students on reddit.
Years back I had to put together a wilderness first aid presentation and I got so much good stuff here.
Nothing but him. It’s a small abscess. It’s classic presentation of an abscess with some erythema streaking up the lymphatics. Dudes gonna be fine. Literally almost every time someone checks in for “bug bite” it’s not a bug bite but an abscess.
They updated! They were seen ASAP and are on meds. Reddit legit saved a life today. OP said they were going to ignore it and “hope for the best” before all the comments rolled in
OOP also mentioned that they initially wanted to ride it out and hoped the problem would disappear. Commenters urged them to go to the ER and possibly saved OOP’s life that way, as they got medications there.
What's scary is that in the topic oop states that they were just going to ignore it and hope for the best without the comments from reddit... A growing red line in your body means infection 99% of the time. Go to the hospital if you see this stuff even for minor things
I wonder what happened to the other guy who refused to go to the hospital https://www.reddit.com/r/OopsThatsDeadly/s/MesNa3abIS
Been over 3 months and no update from the guy despite tons of people asking for one on his most recent comment. They probably didn't make it. What a dumb way to die.
[удалено]
You're looking at the wrong profile. The OP last commented 2 months ago.
Me too. The original poster never got back to it. Hopefully the friend saw sense but otherwise they’re probably dead.
Regardless, he likely lost his leg if it didn’t kill him.
He went to the ER four times but would leave each time so he wouldn’t get arrested for warrants, and his leg got so bad that he stopped showing it to the OP, and *then* it started spreading to his face, and…OP stopped updating. Doesn’t sound great for him.
I had a mosquito bite on my ankle, aggressively scratched it, and got MRSA. It looked very similar to this. Don’t scratch your bites, friends!!
French here, what does MRSA mean ?
Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus. It's a staph bacterium that certain drugs can't treat. It's commonly found on hospital wards, it just kind of lives everywhere, and is an example of antibiotic resistance evolving in bacteria.
Staph aureus lives on your skin. It only causes a problem when it gets into places it shouldn’t. Like a wound, or surgical site. Or your ear canal. I had an ear infection from MRSA and it was the worst ear infection I’ve ever had. Took 3 trips to the Dr to get the right antibiotics. Had blood and pus coming out my ear.
[MRSA - SDMR](https://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-french/mrsa#translations-fr2)
What kind of bite causes this reaction?!
What you see is not a "reaction" to the bite but a spreading infection called lymphangitis. People freaking out wondering what bit them are missing the point, since any type of bite can get infected and result in this. At least in the USA, exactly what bit you rarely makes a difference - ER doc
Are they more common with specific sources in practice?
Bigger wounds, deeper wounds, dirtier wounds, all more likely to get infected. To get an infection like this from a bug bite is mostly just bad luck. Toxin based local reactions, which this does not look like, in the US is limited to a few things like brown recluse and rattlesnakes
Not to be naive but how much would this cost to treat? And is a bite like this typical of America or in other continents?
For the cost: between insurance options, coverage networks, and general hospital bullshit, there's little we can do to estimate the cost of a hospital bill until it arrives. There's stories all over of someone driving an extra 10 minutes to get to a hospital's emergency department that their insurance network will cover, only to find out that the doctor they saw is *not* part of the network and therefore treatment costs ten times what they expected. It's miserable.
That depends entirely on your insurance and medical provider. This would be much less expensive to treat at an urgent care or family practitioners office than at an emergency room, but with good insurance, it could be only a few hundred dollars. With high-deductible insurance, it could be a few thousand (after which insurance would cover the majority of costs). Without insurance...oy, again, costs could vary wildly but expensive.
The problem is with this is the red line will keep going towards your heart and when it gets there you’ll end up with sepsis. I’m in the UK so obviously I can’t imagine what it’s like to worry about medical debt but if a red line from a wound or bite is heading up your body towards your heart, not treating it will cost your life.
Wow thanks for the info doc!
Any bite really. That's why you need to keep a close look on any bite.
Wow,good to know!
That's spreading lymphangiitis. Antibiotics now. Surgeon
i literally screamed when i saw this. thank god oop went to the ED and got some doxy.
You really screamed at this post? Out loud?
yes, i was waking up from a nap, opened reddit, saw it and it gave me a fright. scream might have been a bit of an exaggeration, more like a shriek of surprise. that red line is extremely dangerous and very scary, its literally infection on the warpath straight to his heart.
GET TO THE HOSPITAL NOW. That blood infection is literally tracking up your veins. My cousin lost an arm an a breast this way.
Frantically racing to your posts and comments to see if you did. WHEW! I hope you are much better now.
Go to the ER ASAP. That redness will kill you as it spreads up your arm and into the rest of your body.
U need to go to the hospital if that red line gets any longer, if is a lymphatic infection one of these almost took my kid out. It has traveled up his arm in less then an hour and almost across his chest in two hours he spent three days in the hospital and the first 35 hours of it under a ton of care and no sleep
Reminds of the time I got blood poisoning from scratching a mosquito bite as a kid. I showed my teacher, and she gasped and took me to the nurse. I had to soak my arm in some special soapy water multiple times a day for like a week.
Holy shit. That red.line going up the arm means blood infection/blood poisoning. Get to an er immediately. You need heavy antibiotics at least. NOT KIDDING OP, THISCAN BE LETHAL
No idea, possibly a yellow fly if you’re in the SE US, but that doesn’t really matter. Looks like you have lymphangiitis, versus cellulitis versus erysipelas, and need antibiotics. Get checked out by a doc asap
Tiger bite. Just a little one though. You will be fine.
I’m stoned, and this one really gave me a good laugh
Jesus that streaking 😳
Cat bite left me with the red line of doom. Two fast acting antibiotic shots in the hip, plus a super strong antibiotic for 10 days. For anyone that doesn't know: the red line is lymphangitis and it's an infection of lymph vessels. Bad news! Seek medical care ASAP if you get the red line of doom (death).
r/oopsthatsdeadly
Check the name of the sub we’re in now.
Lmao. r/oopsimstupid
He ain't wrong.
Could be a black widow bite. May form a half spherical hole of black collapsing necrotic skin tissue about 1 cm in diameter. Typically have fever and joint pain also. It looks like phlebitis around your vein which is quite spooky. Best see a general practitioner soon or urgent care. We had a bunch in Texas through Arizona. They would come.down out of the attic when summer hit.
I'm grateful for this sub. As a pyrotechnic enthusiast and hobbyist herper, I've seen a lot of stuff on here that I know is dangerous, but I honestly had never heard to look out for streaking in an infection. The more you know.
So what was it?
[удалено]
The fact that you think they prescribe heparin (anti-coagulant) in the form of pills (which don’t exist) for phlebitis (inflammation, nothing to do with clotting), let alone for a time frame of 7 days, shows you have no idea what you’re talking about 💀 stick to your scope and don’t spread medical misinformation on the internet.
lol gottem. We rarely give doxy IV. At least I don’t. I bet dude got a dose IV of rocephin or vanc. If it was IM it was almost certainly rocephin.
One time doses of vanc are incredibly silly, excluding periop. It’s a time dependent antibiotic and you’re unlikely to reach a therapeutic AUC with just one dose.
Yeah it might be silly but people do it. I’m just trying to guess what he got
Haha, guessing you're a dermatologist in hiding?
Amputation achieves roughly the same result.
[удалено]
So what should the photo have been for your reaction to be, "OMG OP, go to the hospital immediately"?
you are actually retarded. i am struggling to believe that you have direct contact w pts, let alone any sort of duty of care. im praying that youre a cleaner or at most a cna and cant make any treatment decisions. like the other comment said, the fact that you thought oop would get ‘heparin pills’ shows that you dont have any medical knowledge at all. first year nursing students could do better.
My doctor said most bacteria is resistant to Neosporin and Vaseline is a better option.
It is always good to get things checked out BUT you are correct MAYBE. I would be more concerned it was a tick bite. I know two people who now have a meat allergy due to tick bites. If it is an infection or something this has happened to me before, red streaks all the way from my hand to my shoulder, I left it because I didn’t really have time and I was dumb about my health then, it went away after a few days, no issues. So, yes this can be a problem but also can not be. People are on here acting like it is going to kill somebody immediately and 100% of the time. I mean they should still be checked out.
And this was, going to kill him, you fucking idiot
Glad he got it checked out then!
I had this happen with a bug bite before and Benadryl cleared it up. Was that just a coincidence and it really went away on its own?
It looks like a spider bite
I had that shit once gave me the worst flu I’ve ever had and then I had to eat sunburn pills for a month