Warning if you're bitten by an insect.

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Skippydo

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Just a bit of advice and a little warning really.

My OH got bitten on his hand at work on Thursday by an insect that was flying around in his office, not a mozzy, but not sure what it was.

Last night he started to get a rash up his arm and this morning the red rash is in a line up to his armpit. We rang my sister who is a practice nurse and she said the poisons got into your system and you need antibiotics NOW, if they don’t work you’ll have to have them intravenously, that’s how serious it is.

So we rang the out of hour’s medics and they said the same and he’s now on his way to hospital to get antibiotics.

OH knew it could be serious cos his ex father-in-law had the very same and didn’t get it treated soon enough and he died
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So just to say, if you get bitten and you get a red rash in a line, seek medical help immediately.
 
You're welcome, I'm sure he will be.

It's just that its the sort of thing I'd say "Ah it's ok, it'll go away" to, but it can be more serious than i would ever have thought.
 
Yup, has happen to my OH twice in the last ten years. Last time was this summer and he got bitten twice on the knee - through jodhpurs - and once on the neck. We had him to the doctors the next morning because of the swelling and the poison travelling along the veins towards the lymph nodes, fortunately we had seen it before so knew what to do - firstly buy some Fucibet cream from the pharmacy to apply topically and second, get a prescription for tetracyclin from the docs. The other thing is that the bites keep itching and breaking out again for AGES afterwards - the one OH had on his leg in about 2003 was STILL itching occasionally four years later
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I had the same thing being bitten by a mosi in Corfu on the right wrist. The red track started from the swelling and spread up my arm slowly day by day until it was halfway up my forearm. I had antibiotics with me, so took them and was fine within two days, curiously I did develop a painful lump in my r.armpit months later that is still there 3 years later.
Scary indeed.
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I've seen a couple of very, very odd insects flying around at the moment, they're like a crane fly / ant / mosi weird thing
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Will be steering clear whatever happens!
 
Sorry but for goodness sake people, learn to THINK!

OK, the correct bit - any break in the skin that starts to swell a while later (days, not hours) accompanied by redness tracking up a limb needs to be seen by a medically qualified person and antibiotics prescribed (and the full course taken).

As for there suddenly being a poisonous insect that causes this - RUBBISH! What has happened to those people bitten by these strange new insects is that they have had a bite from a perfectly ordinary mosquito or similar, they have scratched it with dirty fingernails and introduced a common or garden bacterial infection, in some cases this is turning towards septicaemia and needs treatment.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Sorry but for goodness sake people, learn to THINK!

OK, the correct bit - any break in the skin that starts to swell a while later (days, not hours) accompanied by redness tracking up a limb needs to be seen by a medically qualified person and antibiotics prescribed (and the full course taken).

As for there suddenly being a poisonous insect that causes this - RUBBISH! What has happened to those people bitten by these strange new insects is that they have had a bite from a perfectly ordinary mosquito or similar, they have scratched it with dirty fingernails and introduced a common or garden bacterial infection, in some cases this is turning towards septicaemia and needs treatment.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice!!
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You're obviously 'in the know' and don't need the friendly advice / warning.
 
OH's bites are actually from horsefly type insects, not mosquitos, we know, we saw it biting him on the leg and it left holes in the material of his jodhs. The problem is these insects have serrated mandible type thingies instead of a pointy proboscis. So instead of sticking you, and injecting an anti-coagulant while they suck your blood; they actually bite a chunk out of your skin then 'lap' up the resulting bleed. Of course, not being very good at cleaning their teeth they carry all sorts of bacteria from their previous victims which causes the infection at the wound site and further. I don't think for one minute they are actually 'poisonous' just germ ridden!
 
Tetracycline is an antibiotic given when the "usual" ones don't work, I think they give it for Lyme Disease. Its important that your prescribing doctor realises this if you are worried you have got such a bite.
 
Happened to me in Austria once - got bitten on wrist by a tiny insect - by the time I got back to UK my arm looked like sausage man and I was shaking and sweating. Told I was lucky I didn't get septicaemia!

Problem us you don't know what else these little bugg*** have been feeding on!
 
Oh, hope he is ok soon, very nasty and painful, we have to watch out for scorpions here.
Chico Mio are you referring to the deer flies? they are a nightmare, slightly flattened, crablike fly down here, that you cannot squash. They leave bite marks on me and the nags and even the great dane, lasts for months.
 
We have a friend who has only just been discharged from hospital this week as he was bit on the stomach last week and has been on i.v. antibiotics. He ignored it at first but ended up with a large swelling.

For most people a bite is a bit irritating but inoccuous. However if unlucky they can get infected or at times there can be a moderate to severe hypersensitivity reaction both of which need to be take seriously.
 
I get this reaction to horsefly bites. I have to keep an eye on it and if the dreaded red trail starts, off for antibiotics.
 
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