Infected thumb: OT?

Well, this is probably OT, but you're the only 'Drs' I can ask today, and you know as much as Drs about infections. I have a weird looking infected thumb.

I take my dogs hiking thru the woods (w/ nice, wide trails) at least 5-6 days per week. We are lucky to have this place -- it is off leash and the trails run above a big lake, leading down to a canine only beach where they can swim. I've got a sweet, but naughty little (60 lbs) pitmix who routinely runs thru the woods and rolls in deer, horse, or whatever doo doo she can find, as well as dead things. (she came out once, after rolling on a oppossum that had decomposed to the point it was a pile of slime on bones-- she was totally covered in SLIME, oh man!!)

Anyway, last week, she came proudly out of the woods with a mostly decomposed fish hanging from her collar. I reached down to pull it off and my thumb got stuck w/ 2 of the spines. Very minor, drew blood, but only a drop. Wasn't concerned and only did the rudimentary washing. Started hurting like a MF the next day and I thought one little punture might have had a piece of the spine in it, festering and it had started to swell a little.  I sterilized and needle and dug in it and didn't find anything. Kept it clean w/ peroxide, antibiotic cream and bandaid and it felt better and continued to get better til around yesterday, when it started hurting again. The swelling from the little wound went away, but the front side of my thumb, nowhere near the wound sight, was swelling and getting red.

ALL nite, this B hurt like a MF again, so bad I couldn't sleep w/o painkiller and a xanax. This morning the whole thumb is swollen and the front side, which is nowhere near the wound sight is turning dark purple to black, like a bruise. The entire thumb is red and I can hardly touch it.

Is there something in fish spines meant to cause this in a possible predator? I can only imagine what kind of bacteria was on it! Why did it get better, then suddenly worse?  Is it a sure sign that my immune system is compromised or is this what one might normally expect?  I have never had anything like this.

Thank goodness I have a Dr appt in the morning, but meantime I don't want to go into some kind of septic shock or anything.... What might I do in the meantime?

Post Edited (LymeUnknown) : 5/10/2009 9:28:05 AM (GMT-6)

Hi LymeUnknown,

so sorry your hurting, you can do what kandinsky said and also use a backing soad past on it after soaking it. and a sure firer tip to remove order from yur babies rools into the unknown is 4 cups peroxide 1/4 cup baking soad and 1 tsp dawn dish soap. this mix will even remove skunk order. i have proven it 2 time with my dog who hate em and go after em very time he see 1..lol

also keep this in mind many fish spins have a posion in them and if your algeric to them it can make it worse, specaily catfish. when i fish i always use a rag to handle my catches for this reson. also much of our waterways nowa days has toxins in them that fish asorbe ( sorry i cant spell to well ) lol
it is also very easy for the infection to get into your blood strem.

wish you well soon.

RD

Soaking it in warm epsom salt water might be good, too. Glad you are seeing your doctor about this, though, because infections like this are nothing play games with.

Bingo Beth! Yep, it's cellulitis. Dr bout fell out of his chair when he saw it. Ordered immediate abx. Sounds terrible, but I didn't want to take any abx til I can get another lyme test....

btw, he had no ideas about my Quest lyme test -- did not know anything about Band 39 or the species spec bands that they skip. But he did give me thyroid script and a formal referral to an LLMD, which will be about my only shot of getting insurance to pay.