Cellulitis and Lymphedema – Bah Humbug!
December 13th, 2011 by Sharon O'HaraCellulitis/Lymphedema is nasty. Did I mention it is painful? Moreover, it takes ‘forever’ to heal – or so it seems. This time, the weeping sores have spread all the way around my lower left leg.
Seeing the blood on the old pads covering the wounds was new. The blood was new but I was told by a medical person when I called the office that it meant the skin was healing and not to worry. Well. Okay.
I am not worried either that yesterday in the shower hunks of skin sloughed off my leg. The stinging and burning was harsher than usual but I could not see what my husband was talking about until I saw the photos he took of my leg before he rewrapped it.
The medical person who told me my leg was healing might be wrong. According to her, I should have healed last week.
Nothing, this time, resembles what has happened with prior cellulitis/lymphedema ‘attacks’.
What have other patients done to help heal cellulitis/lymphedema? I don’t know what to do next. What we’ve been doing isn’t working.
Beginning to feel like a monkey swinging off the end of a branch high up on a snag tree in the middle of a windstorm – I know storms abate and wounds heal!
Thanks for reading… Sharon O’Hara
Tags: blood, cellulitis, healing, leg, lymphedema, medical person, painful, skin, storms, wounds
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December 13th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Google curcumin the active ingredient in turmeric. After you have done your research (Mayo clinic is a good site) get some and use it! I used 1000 mg twice a day with food and lots of water until I healed and now I take 500 mg everyday just because. I buy it online from drugstore.com and use Doctor’s Best. It works! Regards, Mary
December 13th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Try an unna boot.
Get a referral to the wound care clinic.
December 13th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Boy, that’s bad. I get almost dry…then I’m on my legs too long for days, and/or I haven’t taken my bumetanide (pee pills – they say it doesn’t make a difference on leg water, but it does for me, significantly) for a couple days in a row, and I’m back to using Kotex to sop up the water. Your legs look like they haven’t been getting dry at all, they are soggy. How often are you wrapping? I would think you’d be going thru your wraps a couple times a day with drops that size. Do you get your legs up, trunk down, several times a day, too?
December 14th, 2011 at 12:36 am
Mary, Joe, Sally – THANKS!
Mary, I’m seeing my pulmo tomorrow and bringing a print-out of this post and your idea about the curcumin doing the job nothing else is touching for me. I have a lot of things to ask him.
Joe, I’ve recently used the unna boot three times of excruciating pain…it felt like cement rubbing against raw skin. I refused to use it again although I was told it had cured me in two week some years ago. The only things I remember are the pain when the sores open and weep lymph fluid.
Sally, this is the worst and longest session I can recall. Other medical conditions make elevating my legs most of the time, impossible. Some nights/days I stand up all night long for relief of RLS – NOT good for Cellulitis/Lymphedema. I alter standing with sitting and dozing in an office chair.
What has helped work the best for me keeping this away so long were the pressure stockings and the intensive water work-out with swim coach, Marilyn Grindrod… but I can’ t get in the water with the running stuff that fills my slippers through the wraps.
Thank God for Melissa teaching C how to wrap my legs!
You are right about the p pills helping keep the fluid down – the problem for me is the bone on bone left hip…it doesn’t like long sessions on a toilet seat… which happens with the higher dose p pills.
The huge ‘Big John’ toilet seat helps.
Thanks! Sharon
December 14th, 2011 at 7:49 am
I truly know how you feel! The sores/area weeping should be covered so that no other infection can get in. I am going theough this myself.
Are you on any kind of antibiotic?
Not sure if you know about this but check this out http://www.lymphedemapeople.com/wiki/doku.php?id=lymphedema_advocacy
There are links in the forums that can answer any questions.