Cellulitis

[fatbit]

Ds (3.5) has got an infection in his foot.

Doctor gave us 10 days of amoxicillin three times a day and he's had two doses now.

Anyone have experience with this and any additional advice? Should in be keeping him lying down? (not what she said just what I've read somewhere).

He's not hugely bothered by it unless he's in the bath and he won't put it in the water.

I stupidly googled it and couldn't sleep all night for panicking about deathly blood infections.

I don't have experience of it in children but I had it last summer. If the GP hasn't done it already draw a line around the edge of the reddened skin in pen so you can tell if it is getting worse. If it does get worse go straight to a&e. I was also prescribed Cetraben cream to lubricate the skin. The skin does get very tight from the inflammation and the cream stops it from splitting - eventually the skin came away cleanly (like peeling sunburnt skin) and that made life much easier. I was advised to keep the foot elevated as much as possible but not confined to bed.

I was off work for 3 weeks before the GP was happy for me to go back. The skin is still discoloured a year later and I have to avoid as much as possible wearing shoes/trainers/boots that put pressure on the area of my foot (the top) that was affected. The GP tells me that this is normal. I'm now having to apply ibuleve gel/ice packs and elevating my foot when it is particularly bothering me. Hopefully your ds will bounce back much more quickly as children often do.

I had it a few years ago. My experience was that if the antibiotics are working it will stop getting worse/start getting better pretty quickly. You may find however that the first lot of antibiotics don't do the trick. I would say if there is no improvement/it's getting worse you need to keep going back to the doctors. It can be a serious infection so please do go back if it gets worse/there's no improvement. It took me 3 visits to get the right antibiotics and to start improving.

If it's not hurting too much then hopefully you've caught it in the early stages - I found it excruciating, like a broken bone, the pain was so deep right inside my foot. If he starts complaining of pain I'd take that as a sign the infection is getting worse and go straight back to docs (including out of hours if it is weekend/night time).

Like PP said, the skin gets horrendously dry and flakey so moisturiser (I used doublebase which is another strong one like cetraben) is definitely needed. Again I had markings from it for a couple of years afterwards but they've faded now and I would imagine young skin heals much more quickly than that of a 40something!

Amoxicillin is an unusual first choice of antibiotics for a soft tissue infection. If there is no improvement in 3 days of being on the antibiotics or he becomes unwell in himself please do seek further medical advise

Advice

MY son and I both had it within a months of each other last year, we had never had it before. With us both it started clearing up pretty quickly with antibiotics. I had it on my arm, my son his knee - they were fairly mild cases and we didn't need to do anything other than take the mess.

Meds not mess

Thank you for your replies. He's had just over 24 hours of the medicine and you can hardly see it now! My Mum said something about it coming back after they're finished if they weren't quite the right ones not sure if that's true.

After researching I thought it was an odd choice too. I do second guess them sometimes as they're aren't actually doctors but physicians assistants. They're usually pretty bang on with most things though.

Glad it's clearing up fast - am sure you know this but please do keep on with the antibiotics. It can 'linger' a bit - I went back for a check up 5 days after finishing the final lot of antibiotics and the GP wasn't happy it was totally gone so gave me another course so do get him checked out once the course is finished if you're in any doubt or it starts flaring up again.

You're right to take it seriously - it is a very nasty infection if it isn't controlled but as you can hopefully see from this thread plenty of people get it and are just fine afterwards.

I will, thanks.

They want to see him again tomorrow but I want to cancel and maybe make an appointment for when the course is finished. I can tell them on the phone that it's pretty much gone. I just don't want to pay for an appointment tomorrow and when he's finished if I don't really need to.

(Obviously paying is NEVER an issue when I have any concern over his health but I feel like this isn't totally necessary.)