Anyone get LE from an accident?

[blessed00]

I was in a car wreck in July 2004. My upper left arm was badly cut and bruised. The swelling never went down and my hand got huge. Finally I was diagnosed with secondary LE and have been going to therapy and doing all the wrapping and wearing a compression sleeve when not wrapping. Something else that has occured is I got a couple of knots under my arm in the pit area and they got real red, swelled and hurt like the dickens. I went to the doc he drained one and they called me today to tell me that he wants me to take a bunch of antibiotics because the swab came back with staph in it. Now Im totally confused. I know that LE causes the bacteria to stay in your arm until its manually drained but could that be what caused the staph infection? I go to the doc tomorrow but Im just tired of all the weird stuff popping up... any ideas?

thanks

Lisa

[Ann]

Infections are more common in tissues affected by lymphedema. Often these are staph infections because it lives on healthy skin. In your case you probably had wounds and the staph could have entered through these openings.

With lymphedema you need to be (1) on the alert for any sign of infection, and (2) very careful to protect the skin against any cuts, breaks or insect bites.

Some of the routine protective steps include never having blood pressure taken in the affected arm.

Never having an injection, blood draw, or IV placed in the affected arm.

Ann, from Lymph Notes

P.S. There is a notice on the home page about how to receive a free wallet card that we'll send you to alert healthcare providers about these precautions.