Group,
I was shocked to develop Cellulitis in my elbow/forearm. Of course, I have been put on antibiotics, I am trying hot and cold packs, and trying to make this go away. However, I’ve been warned not to exercise until this goes down a bit.
I would appreciate any insight or experience.
Tough to say without knowing your medical history and evaluating the cellulitis itself. But that being said you should start to see marked improvement of the cellulitis by three days of antibiotics. Guessing they prescribe a total course of 5-7 days of antibiotics?
10 days of Keflex 500 2 x day- said I should start seeing results in about 48 hours. Really crazy. Not really sure where this came from. Had a bike crash three weeks ago, but was doing well. My lower arm looks like Popeye
Our son had cellulitis when he was about 2. Big patch on the lower leg. No visible skin break so it was not obvious where he got it from. At that age kids are not super communicative but you can tell when things are generally not right… Anyway, went to the local walk-in clinic and they pretty much took one look and said “go to emerg, here’s a note to take”. So, off to emerg. They looked at it, put him on IV antibiotics and told us it was good we brought him in right away. Things cleared up pretty quickly, but skin infections like that can go bad in a hurry.
Jens Voigt came down with cellulitis when he was trying to do a bunch of runs back-to-back. His was bad enough that they drew a (sharpie?) line around the extent of the swelling, and basically told him something like “if it gets larger than this, stop everything you’re doing and get to the hospital”.
A local rider died from a staph infection that he didn’t get treated (either not soon enough or not at all - I forget the details).
So in summary I would say… listen to your docs. It ought to clear up sufficiently over the duration of your course of antibiotics, and then you can get back into it. Maybe your body will appreciate the rest, if you’ve been training hard enough that your immune system is vulnerable.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Swelling is a bit worse this morning so I am going to have it looked at again. Interesting and ironically, my sudden on set began while I was at a medical conference I was speaking at in Florida, so I had a lot of folks looks at it when it started Fri/Sat. I’m just surprised how much additional swelling there is this morning, but of course I haven’t been on the antibiotics even 48 hours yet. Kinda crazy, and I am not very good at being sidelined.
Group,
I was shocked to develop Cellulitis in my elbow/forearm. Of course, I have been put on antibiotics, I am trying hot and cold packs, and trying to make this go away. However, I’ve been warned not to exercise until this goes down a bit.
I would appreciate any insight or experience.
Going through this right now also. I’m treating it as if it were like any other issue. Rest is best until it’s resolved. Come back 4 days earlier at 62% or 4 days later at 100%? If a matter of days makes or breaks your race/goals well then… that’s a different thread.
Side note, you might consult your physician. Sure they’re high and mighty “know it all’s” but there’s something about that “M.D.” part that tells me they might have an opinion worth listening to.
Jens Voigt came down with cellulitis when he was trying to do a bunch of runs back-to-back. His was bad enough that they drew a (sharpie?) line around the extent of the swelling, and basically told him something like “if it gets larger than this, stop everything you’re doing and get to the hospital”.
i had exactly that message a couple of months ago after a bike crash. i had a cut that was healing up nicely then all of a sudden it started swelling up. fortunately i was at the doctors that day for a check anyway. it did get a bit worse that night and i was starting to worry the next day but then the antibiotics kicked in and it started improving.
you should get notable improvements within a few days so just take the rest and let your body do its job. you won’t lose any fitness from a few days rest but could give yourself major problems if you don’t let your body repair this. its one of those things that modern medicine can handle very well as long as you do your part but can turn very bad otherwise.
Group,
I was shocked to develop Cellulitis in my elbow/forearm. Of course, I have been put on antibiotics, I am trying hot and cold packs, and trying to make this go away. However, I’ve been warned not to exercise until this goes down a bit.
I would appreciate any insight or experience.
Pretty unusual to get cellulitis without a cut or a scratch nearby to it.
The antibiotics you are on are OK, not high strength and you are not taking as much as you could. If things are not improving or get worse, or you develop fevers you definitely need to be off to be checked out, possible for a change of antibiotics or a course of IV antibiotics.
There could be an underlying abscess developing or this could also be related to conditions such as gout. Definitely make sure you have been seen by your primary health carer.