How does edema cause cellulitis

A physical exam might reveal:. Depending on the severity of your symptoms, your doctor may want to monitor the affected area for a few days to see if the discoloration and swelling spread. In some cases, your doctor may take blood or a sample of the wound to test for bacteria. You should always see your doctor first if you have symptoms of cellulitis.

Without treatment, it can spread and cause a life threatening infection. However, there are things you can do at home to relieve pain and other symptoms. For a start, you can clean your skin in the area where you have cellulitis. Ask your doctor how to properly clean and cover your wound. If your leg is affected, raise it above the level of your heart. This will help reduce swelling and relieve pain. Several factors increase your risk of cellulitis. This is because bacteria can enter your skin through cracks that these conditions cause.

In most cases, a course of antibiotics will clear up the infection. However, if you have an abscess, a medical professional may need to drain it. For surgery to drain the abscess, you first get medicine to numb the area. Then the surgeon makes a small cut in the abscess and allows the pus to drain out.

The surgeon then covers the wound with a dressing so it can heal. You may have a small scar afterward. Your symptoms may worsen in the first few days after you first notice them. However, they should begin to improve 2 to 3 days after you start to take antibiotics. During your recovery, keep the wound clean. If you have a break in your skin, clean it right away and apply antibiotic ointment. Cover your wound with ointment and a bandage until fully healed.

Change the bandage daily. Take these precautions if you have poor circulation or a condition that increases your risk of cellulitis:. This condition causes swelling, discoloration, and can develop into skin ulcers. It is the result of poor circulation in the lower limbs and typically affects the lower legs and ankles.

Unlike cellulitis, this condition can affect both sides of the body and is not the result of bacterial infection. However, should you develop sores or ulcers as a result of venous stasis, your risk of a skin infection will increase. Erysipelas is another skin infection. Like cellulitis, it can start from open wounds, burns, or surgical cuts.

Most of the time , the infection is on the legs. Less often, it can appear on the face, arms, or trunk. However, cellulitis affects deeper tissue, while erysipelas is often the result of strep bacteria and its effects are more superficial. An abscess is a swollen pocket of pus underneath the skin. It forms when bacteria — often Staphylococcus — get into your body through a cut or other open wound. When this happens, your immune system sends in white blood cells to fight off the bacteria.

The attack can form a hole under your skin, which fills with pus. The pus contains dead tissue, bacteria, and white blood cells. Unlike cellulitis, an abscess looks like a lump under the skin. You may also have symptoms like a fever and chills. Risk factors are well identified but the relationship between consequences of cellulitis and further episodes is less well understood.

Objectives: To review risk factors, treatment and complications in patients with lower leg cellulitis, to determine the frequency of long-term complications and of further episodes, and any relationship between them, and to consider the likely impact of preventive strategies based on these results. Methods: Patients with ascending, presumed streptococcal, cellulitis of the lower leg were identified retrospectively from hospital coding.

Hospital records, together with questionnaires to both general practitioners and patients, were used to record subsequent complications and identifiable risk factors for further episodes. Cellulitis can occur at the site of surgery, or where there is a catheter. Once beneath the skin surface, bacteria multiply and make chemicals that cause inflammation in the skin.

Cellulitis that is not caused by a wound or catheter most often occurs on the legs and feet. However, it can develop on any part of the body, including the trunk, arms and face. It often develops where there is edema swelling , poor blood flow, or a skin rash that creates breaks in the skin, such as a fungus infection between the toes athlete's foot.

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