You need to see a doctor or health care professional promptly if you: notice the red area getting much bigger or there is a lot of pus or there are red streaks coming from the infected site. you develop blisters or sores in the infected area. For other medical problems see your local doctor or health-care professional.
And if your skin starts looking black, or if you experience weakness or tingling in your arm, hand, foot or leg, go to an emergency department near you.
Contact your GP as soon as possible if: your symptoms get worse after 48 hours. your symptoms haven't improved after a week. you develop additional symptoms, such as a high temperature (fever) or vomiting.
Patients with cellulitis will reveal an affected skin area typically with a poorly demarcated area of erythema. The erythematous area is often warm to the touch with associated swelling and tenderness to palpation. The patient may present with constitutional symptoms of generalized malaise, fatigue, and fevers.
Treatment for cellulitis
For mild cellulitis affecting a small area of skin, a doctor will prescribe antibiotic tablets – usually for a week. Your symptoms might get worse in the first 48 hours of treatment, but should then start to improve.
The involved area may rapidly become swollen, warm, and tender to the touch and increase in size as the infection spreads. In lighter skin colors, the area may be any shade of pink or red. In darker skin colors, the redness may be harder to see, or it may appear more purple or dark brown.
In general, cellulitis appears as a red, swollen, and painful area of skin that is warm and tender to the touch. The skin may look pitted, like the peel of an orange, or blisters may appear on the affected skin.
You may have cellulitis if you have an area of skin that is warm, red, tender and very painful. If your infection is severe, you may also have symptoms like fever and nausea. If you think you or someone in your care has cellulitis, it's important to get medical attention as soon as possible.
Complications of cellulitis can be very serious. These can include extensive tissue damage and tissue death (gangrene). The infection can also spread to the blood, bones, lymph system, heart, or nervous system. These infections can lead to amputation, shock, or even death.
It is a fairly common infection, with an estimated 14 million cases a year. Most of the time, the infection clears up with a round of oral antibiotics. But a small percentage of cases — less than 0.5% — are more complicated and may require intravenous (IV) antibiotics or hospitalization.
In rare cases, cellulitis may spread through the blood stream. This requires urgent medical treatment and admission to hospital. Cellulitis around the eye area needs careful monitoring by a doctor. You may be advised to see your local doctor in a day or two to be sure that the cellulitis is improving.
Signs of healing to look for include: Reduced pain. Less firmness around the infection. Decreased swelling.
Why is cellulitis so painful? The infection in the skin causes swelling. It is this swelling that is painful, because it presses the skin out.
Cellulitis usually goes away after taking antibiotics for 7 to 10 days. Longer treatment may be needed if cellulitis is more severe. This may occur if you have a chronic disease or your immune system is not working properly.
Necrotizing cellulitis (or necrotizing fasciitis), a rare but severe form of cellulitis, is the dreaded "flesh-eating disease" that occasionally grabs media headlines. There are two types. The first is due to a very aggressive strain of Group A streptococcus and can start anywhere on the skin.
And if cellulitis spreads to other parts of your body, you might feel tired and develop blisters or red or brown streaks on the skin. “Most of the time, cellulitis occurs on the arms and legs or around a wound, but it can happen anywhere, including the eyes,” Dr.
Cellulitis is a deep skin infection caused by staph or streptococcus (strep) bacteria, including MRSA. Cellulitis leads to redness, swelling, pain and heat in the skin, sometimes in a large, diffuse area.
Cellulitis treatment usually includes a prescription oral antibiotic. Within three days of starting an antibiotic, let your health care provider know whether the infection is responding to treatment. You'll need to take the antibiotic for the full course, usually 5 to 10 days, even if you start to feel better.
Distinguishing true cellulitis from its many imitators is challenging but critical if we are to avoid unnecessary use of antibiotics and delays in treatment. Common imitators of cellulitis are stasis dermatitis, lipodermatosclerosis, contact dermatitis, lymphedema, eosinophilic cellulitis, and papular urticaria.
“Typically, if a patient is not responding to oral antibiotics, and the cellulitis has symptoms that appear to be more involved and can't be managed with antibiotics, such as high fever or low blood pressure — systemic signs of infection — then they get intravenous antibiotics,” says Kaminska.
Untreated cellulitis might lead to bacteremia, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, toxic shock syndrome or sepsis. Rarely, the infection can spread to the deep layer of tissue called the fascial lining. Necrotizing fasciitis is an example of a deep-layer infection. It's an extreme emergency.
There are many other skin conditions that can look like cellulitis, making it difficult to distinguish from benign conditions, such as a fungal infection or redness from poor circulation.
Medications to control fever, pain and symptoms – Usually paracetamol or ibuprofen is used to control the fever and pain associated with cellulitis. Patients are advised to drink plenty of water and if the leg is infected, it needs to be kept elevated to reduce the swelling and ease pain.