Feb 09 2006
Wounded knee
Sorry I haven’t been blogging. I have a bad strep infection in my knee after falling and skinning it a week ago, and wound up spending half the weekend in the ER. I’m allergic to many antibiotics and now more hives today. Feeling awful. Gah.
Here’s what my wounded knee looked like on Day One.
Update: I’m having another allergic reaction to something, probably the antibiotic, plus a fever. I’ve been itching and sleeping most of the day. This is really scary because I’m allergic to so many antibiotics, and I thought this one was okay for me. The doctors don’t know what to do with me.
2 Responses to “Wounded knee”
Now that looks nasty. I have to say that plastic covering stuff gave me blood poisoning once, as the wound was not cleaned enough.
The best thing I’ve found, (and I’ve had many hundreds of knee scrapes and skin grinding on the not so clean ashphalt), is to clean it with warm water with savlon in it, and then dry it in the sun. and don’t worry about the puss thats just the white blood cells after they have been fighting the infection. What you have to find is what is the reason for the infection, mine were mostly bits of gravel and rubber off of the road.
In the old days (1960’s), the doctor used to put some horrible smelling lotion on it and cover it with gauze. Then what happened was the puss built up underneath all that and a big gooey scab would form which he would lift off revealing the wound without skin, right down to the infected area and then you could see the gravel or what ever, and he would pick out the bits with tweezers and then put iodine on it. I have to tell you it hurt like hell when he did that bit. But it cleared up quick after that, leaving a small scar.
In the 70’s they tried all kinds of new fangled gauzes and lotions but none worked as well as the old methods. In the 80’s they used drugs and antibiotics, which worked ok but left nasty scars.
In the 90’s they used more drugs and some strange pad things, the scars were a bit less I guess.
I haven’t been riding bikes this century so no holes in the skin recently.
Yeah, the Tegaderm was a dumb idea. But I’ve used it with great success before, so who knew? I didn’t clean it well enough, but didn’t think to be more careful because my pants leg protected the knee from dirt/gravel when it hit the sidewalk. I thought a little peroxide was all that was necessary.
So you were a bike rider too, eh? I had to give it up a few years ago for health reasons, sadly, and I wouldn’t dare ride one now. I definitely have a fear of falling!