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Helpful piece of advice from a friend
Oct. 24th, 2014 11:05 amPer Beth, who ought to know because she used to be a nurse:
"It is sensible to draw a circle around a red splotch on your arm to see if that red splotch is growing. However, the appropriate reaction to the red splotch getting larger is not to draw another circle. The appropriate reaction is to go to the doctor."
Evidently, although drawing concentric rings on one's arm may be of some entertainment value, it really doesn't address the actual problem, which is that you now have, in residence, a microbe which at very least doesn't care if it kills you.
I did, actually, go to the doctor. She gave me a broad-spectrum antibiotic and a single-dose yeast infection cure. I asked her if I should take the yeast infection pill right away. "No," she said, cheerfully. "You can wait for the itching." Medical professionals have a _terrible_ sense of humor.
Me, I'm taking an acidophilus pill and eating a container of yogurt with each dose of the antibiotic, in hopes of avoiding diarrhea or worse. It seems to be working, so far. I don't like yogurt much, but the Chobani peach is surprisingly good, actually. An accidental experiment (i.e. I forgot) seems to indicate that the acidophilus infusion does help with loose stools. I have not tried to experiment with either the pill or the yogurt to see which one works better. I'm nuking that puppy from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. (Context: many years ago, an ER nurse decided that a young woman who admitted to multiple sexual partners was unlikely to be responsible enough to follow up on a possible chlamydia infection, and prophylactically treated me to a shot of antibiotics. The STD test came back negative, but in the meantime, the prophylactic treatment killed off all the useful bacteria in my gut, which allowed clostridium difficile to take over. This gave me a truly epic case of diarrhea, and a six week course of Flagyl in order to fix that. Flagyl is a truly nasty drug, which made everything taste bad. It also interacts with alcohol in an unfortunate way -- that is to say, vomiting --, so it was six weeks of enforcedly sober misery. Nothing has ever made me want to drink so much as Flagyl, I swear. So, this time around, I'm really really wanting to avoid having imperfectly digested food exit my body abruptly. From either end of the alimentary canal, thank you very much. Hence the acidophilus.)
My arm, my arm is only slightly red, no longer swollen, and itches only sometimes. So, there's that, too.
"It is sensible to draw a circle around a red splotch on your arm to see if that red splotch is growing. However, the appropriate reaction to the red splotch getting larger is not to draw another circle. The appropriate reaction is to go to the doctor."
Evidently, although drawing concentric rings on one's arm may be of some entertainment value, it really doesn't address the actual problem, which is that you now have, in residence, a microbe which at very least doesn't care if it kills you.
I did, actually, go to the doctor. She gave me a broad-spectrum antibiotic and a single-dose yeast infection cure. I asked her if I should take the yeast infection pill right away. "No," she said, cheerfully. "You can wait for the itching." Medical professionals have a _terrible_ sense of humor.
Me, I'm taking an acidophilus pill and eating a container of yogurt with each dose of the antibiotic, in hopes of avoiding diarrhea or worse. It seems to be working, so far. I don't like yogurt much, but the Chobani peach is surprisingly good, actually. An accidental experiment (i.e. I forgot) seems to indicate that the acidophilus infusion does help with loose stools. I have not tried to experiment with either the pill or the yogurt to see which one works better. I'm nuking that puppy from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. (Context: many years ago, an ER nurse decided that a young woman who admitted to multiple sexual partners was unlikely to be responsible enough to follow up on a possible chlamydia infection, and prophylactically treated me to a shot of antibiotics. The STD test came back negative, but in the meantime, the prophylactic treatment killed off all the useful bacteria in my gut, which allowed clostridium difficile to take over. This gave me a truly epic case of diarrhea, and a six week course of Flagyl in order to fix that. Flagyl is a truly nasty drug, which made everything taste bad. It also interacts with alcohol in an unfortunate way -- that is to say, vomiting --, so it was six weeks of enforcedly sober misery. Nothing has ever made me want to drink so much as Flagyl, I swear. So, this time around, I'm really really wanting to avoid having imperfectly digested food exit my body abruptly. From either end of the alimentary canal, thank you very much. Hence the acidophilus.)
My arm, my arm is only slightly red, no longer swollen, and itches only sometimes. So, there's that, too.
