'An insect bite gave me cellulitis'
I went to a barbecue, and got an insect bite on my ankle while I was walking through the long grass. I'm slightly allergic to insect bites, so I wasn't too worried when the area around the bite started swelling up. A few days later, though, I started to feel a little bit under the weather and, even though I'd been rubbing an antihistamine cream into the bite, it was still swelling up. Then I noticed my calf had also started to swell up and was turning red. After another day, my leg was really swollen and I could barely put any weight on it. So I went to visit my doctor. He told me I had cellulitis, which you get when a particular bacteria infects the tissue in your body. He gave me antibiotics and told me to keep my leg elevated. I arranged two pillows at the end of my bed to rest my leg on while I slept. I expected the swelling to start going down quickly, after taking my first dose of antibiotics. But it went down incredibly slowly, and had only just gone back to normal when I took the last of my antibiotics a week later.
Mary Kumar, 36, is a housewife from Powys, North Wales
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Philip Debbage, 4 months [Offensive? Unsuitable? Report this comment.]
I have also experienced a similar reaction to an insect bite. Like Mary I do suffer with insect bites and on this occasion just kept applying "Anthisan" bite cream. This failed to reduce the swelling and by the next day my arm was enormous, my GP told me I had cellulitis and prescribed antibiotics. These made me feel really tired and disorientated but I hoped they would cure me.