Thread: Infection

No, it's not what you think.

I had a hang-nail/cuticle on the side of my fingernail so I ripped the fucker out... it pulled from quite deep. A few days later and my finger is swollen down to the first knuckle (from the tip) and red. Fuck it hurts like shit, too.

The redness and swelling has grown over the last few days and it feels like there is a pocket of something down deep in there when I poke it [and try not to scream] so tonight when I got home from work I got a 19, 21 and 25 guage pin and tried to pierce it... I got pretty deep but obviously not deep enough because all I got out was blood - which I would have got anyway - and the pocket feels like it's still there.

Cut to the question;

Doc, I have some Amoxycillin 500mg left over from some time back and I was thinking of taking 1 twice a day for the next week to see if it fixes the problem. What do you think?

Nevermind, problem addressed!

How is it now? Did you take pics?

If prescribed antibiotics you should really take the whole course (ie having leftovers available). And i know you would have checked the use by date for them.

It's getting a lot better, I posted the same question elsewhere and got :

"What you got is called paronychia and its an infection of the nail fold from ripping the nail too deep on the side. If there is only redness and swelling, then you should leave it alone (not trying to needle it yourself!) and bathe in saline 2-3/day. It'll resolve on its own. If it has pus (yellow collection), then you need that lanced properly by a doctor and put on an oral antibiotic (flucloxacillin). Amoxycillin is not effective and at that dose is subtherapeutic."

I had already googled the Amoxycillin and realised my dose was low and upped it to 1, 3 x daily. I googled "paronychia" and there's an image on the wiki site that's a dead ringer for what it looked like. It's going away now so all good.

Re antibiotic course: It's fine mate they were left over because I was given too much. Amoxycillin is good for a year or so after the expiry date - if it was expired.