Staph Infection in Wound

[ekypoo]

Here's my story, about a week ago I was lifting weights in the gym and lightly grazed my leg with a barbell.  Of coures I immediately washed it with alcohol, applied a triple antibiotic and a bandaid, and then continued with my workout.  Didn't think anything of it.  A few days ago, my throat started to hurt badly and I went to my doctor to get tested for strep.  While I was there I noticed that my leg was a little red and swollen by the wound I got from the gym.  So I had him look at the wound too.  Basically he said that I had both Strep (in my throat) and Staph (in my leg) - he did not swab the wound to make the staph diagnosis.  So he gave me a shot of penicillin, an oral antibiotic (Keflex) to take and some Bactroban to put on the wound.  Here are my questions:

1.  What did I do wrong after the gym incident - I thought i was being pretty prudent in cleaning it all up - I was suprised that it still got infected.

2.  It is 2 days later, and the wound seems a little bit smaller and not painful, but doesn't really look so good - there is a dark red border around it.  I mentioned this to my doctor today (Friday) and he said that I should come by on Monday to get it looked at and possibly to have the infection cut out.  Should I be worried?  Is this normal?

3.  If this ends up being a MRSA infection, what do they do for it?  My choices of antibiotics are limited as I've already been on penicillin and a cephlasporin and it did not clear up + I am allergic to Levaquin and that class of antibiotics (fluroquinolones).  I'm starting to get nervous about this infection.

4.  Finally, my doctor suggests soaking the wound in warm water.  What does this do?

I'd appreciate your comments on this, I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to these things.

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

Most skin infections come even without any external trauma, so I don;t think your hygiene was at fault.  I suspect that when you see the doctor Monday, he won't need to lance it, because it is getting smaller and doesn't hurt, which means the body is taking care of it.  The dark red border will likely be visible for months after the infection is gone--it just takes legs a long time to return to normal color.  This does not mean that it is still infected.  As to the antibiotics, it sounds as though they have indeed worked--it just doesn't look it.  So you should be fine.

Take care.

Dr. Rockoff