I was recently hospitalized and had three surgeries on my arm because of an infection that was supposedly caused by Chlostridia. It was such a freak accident, I just wanted to see if you guys had ever heard of anything like this.
I was attending a horse show in Michigan where I was showing a baby filly. I went to the fairgrounds on Saturday Oct. 11, and while I was going into the fillies stall, I barely poked myself on a smooth wire attached to the stall door. I thought absolutely nothing of it considering it didn't even draw blood and I continued to get the baby horse ready. I had no symptoms of an infection until I was home on Monday Oct. 12th. I woke up that morning and my arm was slightly swollen, but barely noticeable and I was having some shooting pains down my elbow throughout the day, there was also some weakness in the strength of my arm. I just figured I had slept on my arm funny or my arm was sore from showing the filly because they tend to jerk you around. By Monday night, the pain was still present but now the arm was puffy and very sore to the touch. My forearm was probably twice it's normal size and bright red. I then found an area around my elbow that was squishy and seemed to have subcutaneous air, it made a crackling noise much like styrofoam. I called my Dr. and made an appointment for the next morning to get my arm checked out. At the appointment, the Doc looked at it really quick and said it was just a case of Cellulitis and prescribed Augmentin. I got the prescription filled and then proceeded to vomit the antibiotics back up. I never ran a fever and I had taken the meds with food, so the Doc prescribes another medication. I go home that night and by bedtime, I no longer had a wrist or a hand, it had swelled and was in the same condition as my forearm. I decide to go to the ER in the morning and see if I could get IV antibiotics since the orals obviously had not improved the arm. It's now Wednesday the 15th and I go to the ER where I am placed in observation for 24 hrs on IV antibiotics. At 3:00 A.M, a resident comes in and says he would like to get some X-Rays, no problem. After reading the x-rays, the resident comes back to inform me that I will be going into emergency surgery. I get to surgery at about 5 A.M and am given all the talks about what would happen and so forth. After the operation, the surgeon tells me that I had Necrotic Fasciitis and if I had come to the hospital 12 hours later than I would have lost my arm from the shoulder down. To make this story a little shorter, I was in the hospital for 8 days and had another two surgeries after the first one. The surgeon believed that I would need a skin graft to close the incisions, but luckily it was not needed. I have an incision from my wrist to my elbow on the top and bottom of my arm and two incisions on my hand(over 200 stitches). The infectious disease Dr. said that the poke from the wire could have been the cause.
I am happy to be out of the hospital, I got out on the 23rd. I am now going to physical therapy and am hoping to be back to normal soon. Three of my fingers work and I have half of the normal ability in my wrist and am very hopeful for a full recovery.
My question to you is, have you ever heard of anything like this? and does the diagnosis of Chlostridia sound correct? This was such a freak accident, but it has not affected me much, I am still in high spirits and am calling myself the bride of Frankenstein. Thanks for reading all this, I tried to keep it as small as possible!
