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Wondering if Paronychia can get worse bf it gets better?
I was diagnosed with Paronychia a couple days ago and have started Clindamycin, however my finger has gotten worse. It it more inflamed, the swelling is more severe and hurts a lot more. My question is: can or does Paronichia gets worse before it gets better… or is that even a possibility since I’ve been on antibiotics for a full day now…? This is my 1st experience with Paronichia and it pretty awful! Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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Omg! I can relate to what you’re experiencing. I’ll just say what happened to me. It was brutal. If you don’t want to know,stop reading here. I hope my case was the exception.
I had this condition several years ago. I recall I bit a cuticle. I never do that now. I thought it was so complicated for me because it hit during a snow storm and my doctor’s office was closed, as was Urgent Care. I had no choice but to go to the ER.
There, the doctor tried to drain it, but there was nothing in it. It did appear to be infected. Hot, red, swollen and very painful. He put a hole through my finger tip with gauze left inside! I am type 1 diabetic and he prescribed NO antibiotics! I asked. I felt tortured and was at Urgent Care the next morning fighting back tears with worse infection.
UC doctor took out the gauze, prescribed me antibiotic, x-rayed for infection and personally called a hand specialist and arranged for him to see me the next day. He was obviously concerned.
The hand specialist ended up removing most of my nail and monitoring it every other day. He did 2 surgeries on it. I was on 3 different antibiotics at once, doing frequent warm soaks, keeping hand elevated, and dealing with the pain.
The fingertips have so many nerve endings. The pain was indescribable. I had a lot of pain for weeks. It hurt for months and took a year to heal. The hand specialist wasn’t sure why it was so antibiotic resistant and I was referred to an infectious disease control specialist. He recommended that I do the penicillin challenge to see if I was really still allergic to penicillin, which I did do the challenge and I CAN take penicillin. Most children outgrow the allergy. So now I can take penicillin. How ever, before I took the challenge, my finger healed! Yaay! Even after another year, I still got bouts of it being numb.
I really hope your case is different. Stay proactive with your care. Insist on the best care. I think the initial care I got was faulty and it exacerbated the condition. Please post your progress. I hope others had less severe cases than me.
So, for me it got much worse before it got better. I sure hope you don’t experience that.