Need advise- am I worrying too much (disgusting photo alert)

[bookwormcrazy]

Last Thursday night I got bitten by something in my sleep, woke up Friday wasn’t too bad, a bit itchy but I got some salon for it. By Friday evening it had turned into a massive blister.

Woke up Saturday and could barely walk with a massive red ring around it and swelling so went to pharmacy straight away prescribed me with antibiotics. Been on those for 5 days and went back to a doctor yesterday who advised me- still infected although has gone down since Saturday and given me 7 more days of antibiotics.

Today - it accidentally popped but not gone down much, underneath feels a bit solid and looks slightly purple/ black but can’t really tell under the blister?

Here’s the thing - in 10 days I am flying for my first summer/beach holiday in 5 years! I suspect it’s a spider bite - possibly a false widow one when you compare the bite to pictures online but they are worst case scenarios that went crazy and needed operations and now I’m panicking. I cannot miss this holiday or be worried about an infected bite while I am away. Would you get a second opinion on it or stay the course and finish the next 7 days of antibiotics and then see what happens? Please help!

Oof that’s nasty. My husband was bitten by a false widow on his hand. He had a blister like that covering the whole of his palm. I think one lot of antibiotics sorted it though. I think I’d see how it is on Monday.

Thanks. I suppose there’s not much I can do over the weekend. I’m not normally a panicker or over thinker but I have wanted this holiday for so long - I know it’s just my luck that something will happen.

My DD had one like that and we always thought it was a spider bite. It did go down and get better but it took a while, longer than a normal insect bite. She still has a scar now. I think you just need to carry on with the antibiotics, is it itchy? If so that might be worse in the sun so you might need some anti histamines or some lanacane cream?

It’s not itchy any more. It was crazy itchy but that’s gone down. I have bought some antihistamines on the recommendation of my friend so will start those. Will see how it does next week. I’m just don’t like that it actually appears solid and going purple/ black. I think that’s what is worrying me. I will carryon with the antibiotics and see how it’s doing early next week. I just don’t want to wait until the last minute to get it rechecked, in case it does need something doing to it right before I am meant to go away.

Rest and elevate the leg as much as possible. Ice is also good to help with swelling.

After speaking to my neighbour who’s a nurse, I went to a walk in clinic today and glad I did! They had to cut it all off back to healthy tissue, so now I have an open wound which needs to be dressed for 5 days and can’t get wet for at least a week! It’s touch and go whether I will be able to get it wet and use the pool as I go on holiday on Monday. Hopefully it heals nice and quickly this week.
So glad I made the decision to go today, if I had left it another couple of days it would have certainly impacted my holiday a bit! 😅

I would recommend medihoney gauze dressing for popped blisters and open wounds. Expensive but worth every penny and much better than standard dressings. I had a popped infected blister and I ended up not needing further antibiotics as the manuka in the dressing helped it. Don’t spread manuka honey on it, buy the actual dressings. And not the dressings with built in honey, buy the dry gauze ones and wrap in a bandage yourself.

i had a huge similar bite/ blister to you and they really helped heal it

weird a pharmacy would prescribe antibiotics, normally you need a dr to do that.

Thanks for the tip. Will look into it.

where I live, pharmacists can prescribe antibiotics for a set no of conditions like ear infections etc. I didn’t know they could do it for infected wounds as well but it is handy. Twice now I have managed to get antibiotics at the weekend through a pharmacist. The first time was about 10 months ago for an ear infection.

Ah right that’s interesting. I would probably ask a doctor to look at it anyway especially if it’s burst.