Cellulitis Infection
Cellulitis infection is a bacterial infection of skin. Common places of cellulitis infection are face and lower part of the legs but those are not rules and cellulitis can attack any part of the body skin. It is commonly caused by Streptococcus or Staphylococcus bacteria which enter in the skin mostly through cut or damaged skin. Those who had known injury like cut, insect bite, fracture or burned skin, then persons with weakened immune system, persons with various skin conditions (athlete’s foot, chicken poxes), drug addicts (intravenous use) are in much higher risk of getting cellulitis infection.
Cellulitis symptoms
There are many symptoms of cellulitis and it is not needed that all of them come in single package. Common signs are:
- red spots on top of reddish skin
- those red area over time are getting bigger
- limb swelling
- pain
- warm feeling and fever
- in certain cases little blisters can occur
- rash
In those cases best thing is to visit your doctor, before disease expand and take other parts of your body. Depending of the cellulitis type doctor will do an oral antibiotics prescription where you will need to attend controls in range from 3 days after taking antibiotics to 15 days after taking antibiotics. In most cases your symptoms after treatment will disappear after a couple of days but in harder cases hospitalized care will be needed. Important thing when taking the antibiotics is that you finish course of doctor treatment and to not stop taking medicines right after symptoms disappeared.
Cellulitis prevention
Cellulitis prevention is very simple:
- wash your hands often
- keep oral hygiene on high level
- treat surface wound and cuts
- lubricate your skin (this will prevent skin breaks)
- wear appropriate clothes
- keep your eye on signs of possible infection
Cellulitis is not a serious condition if treated. If not it can become even life threatening. Please do note that this page is not about cellulite – dimpled appearance of skin. Also you will need to know that cellulitis is not a contagious disease, since it infects skin deeper layers.