Haha, mte. Glad to know I'm not the only one.

at least his "ooops" numbers are low










good luck OP

Just got back from the dermatologist.

He listened to my story (no apparent injury or reason for wound, timeline, looked at photos, discussed prior dermatologic history), and he believes it is Ecthyma (second info link here).  Basically: a deep skin infection caused by strep or staph.

He's got me on doxycycline for a month, combined with keeping it covered with mupriocin ointment, and putting a bandage over it to help protect it.  He also wants me to follow-up in a month to see how it is going.  If it hasn't been healing very well, he'll biopsy the area.

Unfortunately he said that this sort of thing is more common in people like me who have eczema, since we have lost part of our skin's natural protective barrier.  Which would make sense in this case, because this occurred in an area where I had some eczema awhile back (although it seems to be gone away).

The doctor also liked all the photos I've been taking and requested I keep taking them to watch the progression.

As to this being a spider bite: he said that only a brown recluse would do something like this, but they just aren't in this area of NC unless I went to the western NC mountains, TN, or northern AL regions and just happened to bring one back with me.

He also mentioned that it was good that the scab (he had a technical term for it but I can't remember ) came off.



I'll keep you guys and gals updated.

you should send him a link to this thread

Nice update, glad to hear it's nothing too serious.

Not serious?? he has to take an antibiotic and keep it dressed for a friggin month!!.

Everything is relative.  I'd say, if you want to see "serious", do a Google Images search for "ecthyma".  Thankfully mine isn't that bad.

Okkayyy. That's enough.
(Note to self: do *NOT* try to out-gross a doctor.)

Saw that online too. Eww.

Yes "not serious". He hasn't been admitted to the hospital, doesn't need surgery, and there's no talk of amputation. Putting some ointment and a clean bandage on is probably as easy as OP could ask for in the end.

dont rub your dick in it.  Seriously, have you considered amputation?

What you did there, I see it.

To OP, it definetely looks like MRSA and you probably need an incision and drainage

Edit: didn't read the update. 13ers doing 13er stuff.

^ Read the updates.

Dibs on Shoes.

You don't want them. A pair of Brooks Beast that are falling apart.

Probably a combination of a few things, someone please correct me if any of the below statements are wrong.

Assuming it is ecthyma…
Since that is an infection deep in the skin of (generally speaking) strep or staph, it isn't surprising.  Staph is all over the place, including your skin.  I'm not 100% sure if strep is on your skin as well but I'll assume it is.  Anyway, if they get into a wound, they'll multiply.  So perhaps I had some generic cut/scrape they got into?  It's also possible that since I have a small splotch of eczema in that area of my leg, they just took advantage of my skin not having the normal natural protective barrier there.

Something to also consider for a STHF kind situation.  I'd be SOL until things got running again.

Occasionally, life throws you a shitty hand.  In my case, I have a genetic immune deficiency (I basically have no IgA) that might have also potentially contributed, but who can say for sure?  It doesn't seem to affect me in my day-to-day life, although I suppose I'm technically more susceptible to things like sinusitis and upper-respiratory infections.  I also have vitiligo (a mild case, thank goodness), and I've already mentioned the mild eczema.  Overall, I have crappy skin.  I've also previously had MRSA and Strep-B skin infections, but that's another story for another time, and neither presented anything like this.  A lot of these symptoms (immunodeficiency, autoimmune disease, skin issues) might actually point to me potentially being celiac.  People who are IgA deficient are much more likely than the general populace to have celiac (something like 10x more likely), but ironically enough, having an IgA deficiency makes the testing for celiac more difficult.

10/30/2014: Update after ~1-month on meds:

Infection site appears to be ~95% healed.  After my 1-month checkup visit with the dermatologist, he said he was happy to see it was healing well.  The white areas are apparently where the epithelial cells are still coming in to finish the healing process.  He also said that I could leave it uncovered, and suggested I keep the mupirocin on it until it completely finishes healing.  30-day run of Doxycycline is over.  Looks like I'll have a scar for at least several years, if not permanently, but that's better than losing my leg.  I won't bore you with the "healing" photos, but I have posted a photo I just took of the "after".

I'm still leaning towards spider bite.  Looks a lot better now.

Nice!

Thanks.  I'm glad it healed up.

Look back, those pictures beforehand look pretty nasty.  At the time I didn't think they looked that bad.  Yeesh.