<p>My then-86 yr old dad was in surgery within 18 hours of an ortho catching his cellulitis. In fact he was sent directly from the ortho’s office to the hospital. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t put much stock in your mom’s self-reporting of symptoms. Apparently some illnesses can present differently in the very elderly. I took my mom to urgent care for a mild but persistent tummy ache, no pain, no fever. It turned out she had a UTI which had gone septic! She was in ICU for 2 days.</p>
<p>Op,
No need to call the family physician. Only the orthopod.</p>
<p>
But if the surgeon is primarily motivated to operate, cause thats his thing, is he the best doc to get an overview from?
Ive had bone spurs in my hand for years & need a surgeon to make a new joint if I want to use my thumb, but it is a chronic rather than acute situation.
The cellulitis is acute.</p>
<p>I had cellulitis in my ankle years ago. It started on Saturday, spread up my leg on Sunday, and I saw a doctor on Monday. He immediately put me on a very expensive antibiotic, telling me that a few years earlier I would have been in the hospital on IV antibiotics. He said to call him if the progress had not halted within 4 hours, but he actually called ME before that. People used to die of it and/or lose limbs before that advent of antibiotics. So it isn’t surprising that it set off alarm bells. BTW, it is my understanding that it is an infection of the soft tissue, not necessarily the skin.</p>
<p>The scenario YoHoYoHo suggests makes sense to me. It also sounds as if hand surgery for your mother would be elective. </p>
<p>DS has had cellulitis twice, and it progresses rapidly - scarily rapidly. </p>
<p>I have an elderly member of my church in a nursing home for the next month in order to receive antibiotic infusions. Cellulitis spread to her shoulder bone and that takes a long time to treat.</p>
<p>The church’s trash hauler ended up in the hospital the same day. Cellulits that spread, caused confusion, and he crashed the trash truck. Funny incident: when admitted and asked what church he “was from” he provided the name of our church, because he had just emptied our dumpster - he isn’t a practicing Christian.</p>
<p>That’s funny, KKmama. Maybe a member-to-be?</p>
<p>My sister had cellulitis in her finger and it destroyed one of her finger joints despite hospitalization and infusions of massive amounts of antibiotics. It is a big deal.</p>
<p>I’m having trouble imagining elective surgery proceeding while someone is trying to fend off a cellulitis infection. </p>
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<p>I completely agree. Sounds like a recipe for post-surgical disaster. One presumes (hopes?) that the surgeon intended to suggest that this could be done after the cellulitis is definitely gone.</p>
<p>Just chiming in to add our story. My mom is in assisted living (memory) and over the course of a month had a small rash on her foot develop into cellulitis. They treated with topical creams until we arrived unannounced and saw her entire foot and calf swollen and moist, wrapped in gauze. Brought her to urgent care where they took a culture, prescribed Keflex and referred to dermatology 2 days later. Dermatologist didn’t even unwrap the wound dressing, said culture was positive for staph infection but they were awaiting antibiotic resistance results. By this point she had rashes on all limbs and head and neck. By that evening the results had come back positive for MRSA, so the urgent care doctor changed prescription to Bactrim. I messaged her primary care physician hand he recommended we visit ER. She was admitted to the hospital for cellulitis and put on IV Vancomycin for 3 days, then discharged to skilled nursing for further recovery. Dermatologist gave diagnosis as “dermatitis” because of rash that showed up in addition to infected leg. Throughout all this no one had any sense of urgency because she had no fever and other vitals were good. General attitude was “this is very common in elderly”. I don’t even know what might have happened if we hadn’t happened to visit when her leg was getting bad. I guess eventually the same sequence of events except they would have occurred a few days later. You think you can relax once a parent is in assisted care, but the standard of care is certainly different than one would hope for. </p>
<p>So sorry to hear about your mom’s illness. MRSA is a medical emergency not only for the patient, (especially the immunosuppressed and the elderly) but the staff and other members of the AL facility. I hope you will not send her back there. As a matter of fact, I would meet with the director and report the facility to the state. </p>