April 26, 2021

Diagnosis

Not feeling well. Hurts to even type. Those infected spots on my skin got really bad while my doctor's office was closed for the weekend. My normally very bony elbow (left side) has swollen to about the size of a softball. Because of that, it's difficult to bend or use that arm at all. I can't put any weight on it. The slightest touch or breeze feels like my skin is being flayed off. The pain twists around my arm up into my armpit and all the way down into my fingers. That part just feels like a really bad arthritis flare up, but it's super annoying. My right arm just has a big lump the size of a grape on my forearm. If it hurts, the pain from the other one has been drowning it out, so I hardly notice it.

Luckily, I woke up earlier than normal and called my doctor as soon as they opened and they were able to see me right away. I basically woke up, called, immediately got a lyft, and went into the office. It wasn't one of my regular doctors, but just from looking at it he said it's most likely MRSA because of how bad it is and the fact that I have the same type of infection in more than one place. I was a little surprised he didn't run any tests to be sure it was that serious. He said normally he would take a pus sample from the abscess, but I shouldn't try to drain the pus out because it will just spread more. Wish I knew that yesterday when I drained 2 large pea sized amounts of pus from it to try and alleviate some of the pressure... I felt like it helped at the time because it hurt less... That's probably why the pain spread from my elbow to my entire arm though.

I'm really hoping that the double antibiotic I was prescribed fixes things quickly, but I won't know for sure for 2-3 days. The antibiotics would be used up on the 8th, the exact day I'm going to be moving, so I really hope for no complications. I am somewhat concerned about sepsis because I've had it before and it's very unpleasant and would definitely need to be hospitalized. It's scary because the symptoms are the same as MRSA, which can turn into sepsis if it spreads enough and sepsis can become fatal in as little as 12 hours... Even minor complications like the first medicine not working out could be a big problem for me as far as moving goes.

Hand hurts too much now. Psychology appointment at 1 and then I'm going to try to sleep off the infection a bit more. Only slept about 4 hours last night...

Written by iyazo

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Comments
JustMegawatt
Posted On Apr 27, 2021

Hope you get better! Hopefully you can drop that habit too as it's self-harm. Ouch!

iyazo
Posted On Apr 27, 2021

@JustMegawatt I hope so too... I talked to my psychiatrist about that today- the fact that I'm not actively thinking about self-harm, but I'm passively doing it anyway. It's scary. And in this case hurts more than any cut I've ever given myself. I used to pick and scratch everything when I was a kid, I haven't done it in a long time until now...wonder why it came back

JustMegawatt
Posted On Apr 27, 2021

@iyazo If you had mosquitoes there, they would have done less harm than the harm you did to yourself. I have mosquitoes where I am STILL, they just come out of nowhere all the time, and I have bites all over and it is 100% so freaking annoying. But that's nowhere near as bad as your situation which you did to yourself.

JustMegawatt
Posted On Apr 27, 2021

Anyway I wouldn't overthink it. It's probably just a habit that came back, as habits sometimes tend to do. It's probably easy to do because you don't feel pain as you're doing it right?

iyazo
Posted On Apr 27, 2021

@JustMegawatt I do have a high pain tolerance and when I do it I'm either hyper focused or dissociating. Whenever I notice myself doing it I have to stop myself and wash my hands, which right now is quite often

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