Infection: A Pictorial History

So, let's follow the evolution of an infected bite...

Time zero

This is about an hour after the bite. As soon as it occurred (or more precisely as soon as I was able to pull the friggin' cat's jaws apart) the bites were soaked in hydrogen peroxide and washed with soap/water. Once we finished with F.C. the bites were smeared with triple antibiotic cream and bandaged. At this time I was more concerned with the bite on the bottom middle pad of the index finger as it hurt the most.

I put off going to the doctor for 48 hours even though I knew cat bites are exceptionally dirty. Even when I went it didn't look very bad but it was very swollen, kind of colorful and hurt like a SOB. The doctor injected some penicillin-type antibiotic into my @ss and prescribed a 10-day dose of Augmentin.

Day 4 at 6am

So, this is what it looked like the day after going to the doctor. It was very stiff, swollen and the colors were getting, well, more colorful.

Day 4 at 6pm

Suddenly it took a turn for the worse, even with the antibiotics.

Day 5

Back to the doctor. He lanced it and forced a large amount of puss out. After that it began draining much better. According to the doc, this pocket of pus put pressure on the capillaries in my finger which prevented the flow of blood to the zone, which meant the antibiotic couldn't reach the infection. Lancing it relieved the pressure and allowed the blood to flow bringing the antibiotic to the wound.

Day 6

The antibiotic is doing it's job. Finger starts to become flexible again.

Day 7

Getting better, draining well.

And what have we learned?
1. It's very hard to clean out a bite effectively.
2. Antibiotics only work if the blood can reach the infection. Note: this is not a suggestion to lance your own wounds, but if you can't get to a doctor and nothing seems to be working that might help...
3. An infected finger can really limit your actions. Being left-handed my shooting/tool-using/uh...personel hygiene hand was out of commision. I had a hard time tying my shoes, flossing my teeth, or caring for my 19-month old.
4. It's a good idea to go to the doctor right away for a deep animal bite.
5. OTC flea treatments are a crock.
6. Cats taste a lot like squirrel.

-Blast

Holy Cow!!!!!!!!!!!

Not to be overly gross, but after just having surgery on a hemorrhoid that followed a course of action very similar to your finger, I can say two things with certainty:

1. I'm extremely glad I wasn't out in the woods. Especially alone or far away from advanced civilization.

2. Thank God for surgeons.

I don’t know what I would have done. Makes you realize that, no matter how much you prepare, sometimes S**t happens. Or in my case, didn’t happen.

Yikes..all that from a stupid cat? That'd be one homeless kitty if it did that to me...lol

Dude! Kill the cat!

Hey, can I steal those pics for powerpoint?

I sure would get rid of the cat, was it yours?

Glad to see you are recovering.

About the cat, it clearly panicked. It's possible a verry friendly annimal in normal circumstances.

OUCH
Infections/Non-healing wounds are a (word rhymes with witch)

I have an ulcerated leg wound that started with a simple blister that broke, then got infected. Trips to one of the top wound care guys in the country 2x/week since May still have not healed it. The doc says "nationwide, the average to heal what you have is 27 months - I target getting it done in 24 weeks" - Thank God for modern medicine - turns out that what I have often cost you your leg "back when"

Bee,

It is my wife's cat. It'll be staying.

However, it hasn't come upstairs since the bath.

-Blast

Alan,

Sure, go ahead and put them in a powerpoint presentation. If you go to my flikr.com page (via my blog) you can get much larger versions of the pictures.

-Blast

Hey Blast, thanks for the pics & writeup. We can joke about it here online, but imagine getting a nasty wound in a survival situation and then as each day goes by the wound gets infected... a sobering lesson.

Thanks for the illustrated timeline of a bite infection, Blast.

I've been lucky enough to have avoided bad infections in my life, except in a hospital... I know... Shocker...

Anyway, my question is this:
I know I mentioned luck up there, but can people be prone to getting infections?

Is there anyone reading this that gets an infection in the slightest cut no matter how hard you take care of the wound?

I went to the dentist a few weeks ago and on a questionnaire it asked, "Do you get infections?", which I thought was a weird way of asking the above questions, if that is indeed what it was asking.

Isn't a cold or virus an infection just by a different type of exposure?

Sorry if these questions are idiotic...

Having had waaaaayyyyy too many dog bites, I can vouch for the need to see a doc right away on these. It does go beyond this though, any puncture wound introduces infection deep into the tissue and the closes over it effectively sealing it in. Very difficult to clean (been there) even with a irrigation syringe. This is particularly important say for example when building a shelter and put a nice long splinter in your palm, grabbing a rusty nail by accident (tetnus), etc. Having to lance in the field may be the difference between good and very bad. Hope your finger gets better quick.

Bill

I just thought about my last post...

I guess it all comes down to an individual's immune system?

And the health of an immune system can fluctuate no matter how robust or be suseptible to different types of infection?

I need to go back to highschool health class. LOL

Something to consider, I've heard various disparaging things about Hydrogen Peroxide as far as its efficacy in cleaning wounds. I think there are much better cleansers availible. Providone iodine comes immediately to minds. I've heard of other iodine solutions as well, one in particular which I can't remember the name of is supposed to be much gentler and stain far less. Someone here mentioned another cleanser that wasn't iodine based but is common in hospitals (again the name slips my mind).

Providone iodine is what we used at the vet clinic I worked at for scrubbing animals before surgery and wounds of all sorts including animal bites to people. A small dropper might be almost indispensible for dirty wounds sustained in the woods.

I always took my cat (now departed) out for a bath and to have his claws reduced -- taken down to just short of the quick. he was much much pleasant with stubs.

That is how my wifes forearm would have looked had we not visited a dr the second day (were traveling the first) after the bite. She does have some nice scars...

Me Too!

Was it Benzalkonium Chloride (Bactine) (but it's not an idodine solution)? I've heard this antiseptic's microbe range covers the rabies virus but of course it's not sufficient because of the nature of the wounds.

I guess getting a dose of antibiotics would be a good addition to the FAK in the BOB eh? That and a basic dental kit with some topical lidocane. Thanks for sharing Blast!

Blast,

You might want to try meow-meow gai-pan. It is said to be very good!
kmat

That's the stuff. I think the medical professionals said that that was their disinfectant of choice, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to get a dropper full like you can with iodine. I do try and get the individual wipes for first aid kits. Certainly it seems irrigating with a solution of iodine or benzalkonium cloride would be benefitial for known dirty wounds like rusty nails and animal bites if you couldn't get to a hospital with in a day or two.

I carry a vial of povidone iodine in a small glass vial (no dropper, just a screw cap though I could easily switch this) in my PSK kit. Fits great with a small BIC lighter as well. You could use it as a disinfectant for wounds and for purifying water.

It's easy to get benzalkonium chloride wipes from most pharmacies or clinic supply stores, and the alcohol free hand sanitizers have them as a main ingredient as well usually.

Eric

Hydrogen Peroxide? Povidone Iodine? Benzalkonium Chloride? Lidocane?

What are you, a bunch of sissies???



The really cool part is that once you take care of the infected finger, it works great to trim up that cigar!

pix on your C:\ disk drive doesn't show on the forum ...

Ok, so summary execution isn't an option.

That leaves assassination.

Or accident......

Thanks Alain...too bad, the other guillotine was much cooler!

Wow, the blog entry is hilarious. I'm sitting here at work trying to hide my snickering with fake coughing.

You can get Betadine in a 1/2 oz plastic squeeze bottle, which is great for first aid kits because it won't break and leave you with a bright orange first aid kit. One came with my REI backpacker's first aid kit, but it looks like you can buy them separately as well. Here's a link .

And in a pinch, you can purify water with it. Probably not great, but better than nothing...

I don't know, Blast but you wife's kitty seems to care alot for you. I noticed it is behind your hand in the last picture or is it just admiring its handy work!

What really bother's me is the cat has started licking me if I sit or lay down somewhere. I'm afraid he's developed a taste for me...

-Blast

Blast, allow me to humbly apologize for laughing. Damn.

The licking of another is usually a sign of submissiveness among social cats. His way of saying sorry.

Or he's looking for the tasty bits.

After reading your blog... I still think my original advice is sound... or the "accident" advice.

My pup would probably arrange the excecution if one of our cats tried that... it is bad enough if they break her rules by attempting to come into a room I am sleeping in

Thanks for letting me use the images, pics always go over better in class with a good story

WOW! I've been bitten by a lot of cats, but never got anything like that.

When you try to drown a cat like that, the cat does what cats do. Don't blame the cat for acting like a cat. Just like survival in other situations, results are due to judgment, good or bad.

The only time I saw a real need to bathe a cat was when the family cat accidentally jumped into a large coffee can of turpentine. And yes, we did have quite an argument about the bath. I'd say it came out about 50-50. BTW, you CAN brush iodine on your arms with a new, freshly-washed 1" paintbrush, I discovered.

Sue

I don't know why she did it, but my daughter used to give her cat (the same one that did a number on my wifes arm during a bathing episode) a bath all the time. It didn't like it, made a lot of noise about it, but never ever even scratched her...

For something like that, I like to stick on my Sawyer Extractor to help it bleed more, hoping to clean it out. Probably only marginally effective though.