Big Red Lumps.

[SeanMoran]

I woke up this morning with a big red lump in my back, around 45 deg. left of the spine, and between the lower and next rib. I noticed a small bump there a few days ago, but without redness nor any pain, and thought nothing of it at the time.

Now it's grown to around an inch in diameter of red, (indicating some kind of infection) and around 1/8th of an inch high, and while the pain was only noticeable when I thought about it as long as I didn't touch it, if I touch it, it feels like being stabbed with a hot knife.

I cleaned the skin and rubbed a bit of savlon antiseptic cream over it this morning before sterilising a sowing needle with a lighter and sticking it a few mm into a couple of places to try to inject the antiseptic and open the way for any infection to escape, but it's at one of those difficult to work on parts of the body, and I can only just reach it with my left hand behind my back, looking in a mirror to find the right target.

I've not had such a thing before, and wonder if I might have been bitten by a spider in my sleep recently, of if anyone else has had some sort of insect bite that might have caused a similar sort of sore red lump around an inch in diameter and 1/8th of an inch proud of the normal skin level. It seems to also be causing some problems with head pain and vision focus although I can't tell if the two are related.

Mainly I would like to ask if anyone else might have had a big red lump develop over a few days somewhere on their skin, and whether it might be a mosquito or a spider or other insect, and what procedures apart from time were used to get rid of it?

If nothing in the way of a cure, how long do they usually last?

[dmax]

ants . spiders, scorpions,etc etc etc

[ChangMaiSausage]

Have you been swimming recently? a friend of mine has a lump on his leg that swelled up and sounds the same as your back.

He went to the hospital to find out he had caught an infection from a swimming pool and somehow something had entered his leg he had to have it dug out and cleaned everyday for a week + medication.

If unsure go and get it checked out.

[SeanMoran]

Have you been swimming recently? a friend of mine has a lump on his leg that swelled up and sounds the same as your back.

He went to the hospital to find out he had caught an infection from a swimming pool and somehow something had entered his leg he had to have it dug out and cleaned everyday for a week + medication.

If unsure go and get it checked out.

Thanks for that suggestion, for I was swimming in the pool back at the old apartments less than two weeks ago, every afternoon. It may have been a waterborne bug.

If it's still not starting to get better on Friday, I'll get myself down to the hospital and take my insurance papers and maybe someone conversant with a scalpel can cut it out for me fairly cleanly. By the end of the week, it will probably have gotten worse or gotten better, and if it gets worse, I'll seek out someone with the right equipment to fix it.

[SeanMoran]

Have you been swimming recently? a friend of mine has a lump on his leg that swelled up and sounds the same as your back.

He went to the hospital to find out he had caught an infection from a swimming pool and somehow something had entered his leg he had to have it dug out and cleaned everyday for a week + medication.

If unsure go and get it checked out.

Well, Friday came and it hasn't got any better, in fact last night it was getting worse so I asked the hotel receptionist to recommend an hospital to visit this morning, and was told that the Sirikit hospital around 10km up Sukhumvit to the west, adjacent to Utapao was bigger and better than the local Ban Chang hospital.

I went there this morning and found the sign for the entrance for Emergency, filled out a form with some personal details, paid 20 baht for a plastic ID card, and was told to visit the surgery clinic, who then told me to come back on Monday at 7am so I would be at the front of the queue. Apparently all the doctors were busy today.

After I got back home, I went to the pharmacy across the soi from the hotel here that does me very nice rates for ventolin but refuses to sell me prednisolone (so I go to the other drug store back in the village where they've known me over four years and don't mind as long as I listen to their lectures and inform them of the daily dosage) looking for some codeine to calm the pain if it gets bad again tonight or over the weekend. The pharmacist didn't know what codeine was (and I don't know if there's a Thai word for it) but provided me with something called Anadol which contains Tramadol HCi 50mg, whatever that is. Apparently it will help with the pain management, but I'll find out tonight I guess.

What surprised me the most was that after I asked for a dose of antibiotics, not expecting any success, she didn't mind selling me those at all, even though she wouldn't sell me prednisolone last week. I've got to take four tablets a day for the next five days to see if that can flush this thing out of me. I never guessed that antibiotics can be bought over the counter without a prescription from a doctor, but I'm not sure because all the times I've had antibiotics in the past were after seeing a doctor. Maybe I'm all excited for nothing?

[Ijustwannateach]

Just hope that you're not taking the antibiotics for nothing- after all, you don't know what you have, and probably neither does the pharmacist. Would be better for you to save it for when you're sure you need it....

[Sheryl]

Rightly or wrongly, antibiotics are sold over the counter without prescription in Thailand. Prednisolone is not, neither is codeine.

Antibiotics come in many types each with a propensity for different bacteria. It is not as simple as infection = take an antibiotic and there is no guarantee that the antibiotic suggested by a pharmacist will be the most appropriate one for a specific infection, if indeed an infection is what it is.

OP should see a doctor. It is impossible for anyone to diagnose or assess this "lump" just from a description of it.

The Queen Sirikit hospital in Sattahip is a good choice.

[SeanMoran]

Rightly or wrongly, antibiotics are sold over the counter without prescription in Thailand. Prednisolone is not, neither is codeine.

Antibiotics come in many types each with a propensity for different bacteria. It is not as simple as infection = take an antibiotic and there is no guarantee that the antibiotic suggested by a pharmacist will be the most appropriate one for a specific infection, if indeed an infection is what it is.

OP should see a doctor. It is impossible for anyone to diagnose or assess this "lump" just from a description of it.

The Queen Sirikit hospital in Sattahip is a good choice.

Thank you both for your advice, IJWT and Sheryl. I've just returned from Bangkok-Rayong Hospital with a nice bandage where this infected wound used to be before a good doctor cut it out of me.

I arrived at 10:00, and the operation was performed between 12:30 and 13:00, and I didn't even have to take my jeans off. Local anaesthetics were used so I was able to observe the procedure by the feel in the surrounding, non-anaesthetised nerves, and it was very clear throughout that 30 minutes under the knife that I was being cut by an exceptional expert in the profession of surgery. I won't mention his name here, but the Bangkok-Rayong Hospital were all professional people from the carpark to the reception and even to the point of the scalpel. It was refreshing to be treated like an human being as an hospital patient, although this is admittedly a private hospital. It's like a different world.

I've compiled around twenty photos of this awful looking monstrosity, and the nurse in the operating theatre was kind enough to take a few shots of the before and after surgery, but they're not a pretty sight, so I won't link the images here, but the commentary I started yesterday afternoon with illustrations can be found at my barely begun travelogue here if that would be a more tasteful means of providing visual examples without putting others off their dinner.

I was fortunate that the pharmacist on Friday was willing to look at the wound from a distance and as it turns out, she provided the correct antibiotics in DicloxaRX500 (Dicloxacillin 500mg) according to the doctor who performed the removal of the cyst, for he suggested I purchase another twenty capsules and continue with the same dosage for another five days, to total ten days in all. I was indeed lucky to chance upon a qualified pharmacist, but it is also lucky to chance upon a qualified doctor just the same.

According to the good doctor I saw today, the cyst was growing and the infection was spreading despite the antibiotics and all my one-handed DIY iodine and savlon treatment, and it would have been a lot less flesh lost if I had been lucky enough to enjoy this same professional service when I presented at the 'other' hospital on Friday morning.

Unlucky for me that they were too busy that day, but lucky for me that I didn't follow their demands and come back tomorrow, for that would have been three days of worsening infection rather than the two it just cost me.

Thanks to Bangkok-Rayong hospital for the 30 minutes it took to cut this thing out of me, and congratulations on the professional style that your staff demonstrated from the moment I walked in the front door.

[ChangMaiSausage]

Glad to here you got to the root of the problem ........

[SeanMoran]

Glad to hear you got to the root of the problem ........

Just to ruin a good thing, after I went in this morning at 10:00 to have the dressing changed, as instructed by the doctor to do everyday for a week, it all went smoothly until I came out with the new dressing, and was asked to wait for the cashier, who then tried to charge me 420 baht for it.

Looks like that tube of savlon and the iodine might come in handy (left-handy) from now on, for the insurance that I made a point of confirming would cover the treatment through the week has now been forgotten. The hospital changed their mind.

On the bright side, it will save me three hours every morning, 100 baht in benzine and the threat of mad, drunk Mercedes E220 drivers like I had try to run me off the road into the median strip on the way back this morning.

What a sorry way to ruin a good thing though. For all the professionalism they displayed at that hospital yesterday, and one incompetent cashier drags the whole lot down to the public hospital level, my back wound included.

<ed: typos galore. I should proof-read before sending in future>

Edited January 25, 2010 by SeanMoran

[bellste]

Just hope that you're not taking the antibiotics for nothing- after all, you don't know what you have, and probably neither does the pharmacist. Would be better for you to save it for when you're sure you need it....

I agree with you 100%. You should not use antibiotics, unless your doctor have told you to do so. And then you should take the full cure, even if you get better along the way. You should keep on until the last tablet. You must not drink alcohol, when you are on antibiotics.

If you use much antibiotics, you can be immune against the stuff, and then it will not work, when you really need it most.

Edited January 25, 2010 by bellste

[SeanMoran]

Just hope that you're not taking the antibiotics for nothing- after all, you don't know what you have, and probably neither does the pharmacist. Would be better for you to save it for when you're sure you need it....

I agree with you 100%. You should not use antibiotics, unless your doctor have told you to do so. And then you should take the full cure, even if you get better along the way. You should keep on until the last tablet. You must not drink alcohol, when you are on antibiotics.

If you use much antibiotics, you can be immune against the stuff, and then it will not work, when you really need it most.

Some infections are not likely to take a day off to wait for the doctor to finish his round of golf on the long weekend. The world doesn't stop turning just because the doctors are on holidays.

Luckily, as I mentioned, the doctor I finally got to see yesterday agreed with the pharmacist's choice of antibiotic, and recommended I buy the same again, to double the duration of the course of it from 5 days to 10. Just because someone studies pharmacy at school for however many years, rather than medicine, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are all wrong and every quack is right. Personally, I trust pharmacists far more than doctors, but I don't trust either any further than the front door I leave by.