Happy Easter Monday all – I hope you’re having a lovely break!
Back in late January, at a 30th birthday party, I got bitten on my foot by what we think was a whitetail spider. It was summer and I was in bare feet on grass so it perhaps wasn’t to be unexpected that I’d be bitten by something. We’re not 100% sure of the spider being the culprit but either way, the bite quickly turned into an interesting story which I thought was worth a blog!
I’m not too much of a fan of getting to the GP for every little niggle (which has of course landed me in trouble plenty of times) but no more than two days after been bitten by said spider, this bite had become quite the little infection – red marks travelling up my foot to my ankle (the bite was just above my index toe) and so I decided to get myself to the Dr thinking that this could be the beginnings of septicaemia.
As it turned out, I was right and upon getting to the GP she almost immediately admitted me to hospital!
I wasn’t quite prepared for that so I wrangled with her a little bit and we settled on a compromise of me sitting with my leg up as well as going on some mighty strong antibiotics to get it sorted. If it got worse, I was to go to the hospital (yeah right!). That course of antibiotics lasted for a week and was working but almost as soon as it was finished – the damn thing got worse again so back I went for another 2 weeks of them and of course, the diabetes got blamed as per usual. Infection arrives, pushes up my BGs which feed the infections (quite literally) which then gets worse and so on…
In an of itself, this news isn’t particularly interesting because we’ve all been there at some stage but it did serve to teach me a lesson – look after my feet, especially as a diabetic. Until this all happened, I’d pretty much dismissed all those nagging voices of Drs and nurses echoing in my head. I firmly believed that advise was only for people that are older than me, had bad control and weren’t in good health. Oh how wrong I was! And, perhaps a bit arrogant too if I’m honest.
It’s not actually the first time that I’ve had something similar to this happen so I suppose that every now and again, it’s good to be reminded that they’re not always naysayers and sometimes, I’d do well to take the advise I get and keep an eye out for my feet.
So what is my ultimate lesson here? Put your feet up more often!
- Aaron
Posted in Complications, General, Slice of Life
Tagged as diabetic foot care, Spider Bite
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Roy wrote
I trust you are back in the mend mode Arron. I think this is an interesting topic and not only for feet. As you say, we are all in for this and in the case of feet, be it a bite, sting or cut, the slow “heel.”
I have been wearing the same pair of gumboots for some time, ah! When I am wearing them that is and I don’t always wear socks. Some weeks back I was on one of my clam gathering episodes and on getting back to the car, the skin had been chafed to where it was bleeding on the upper feet near the ankles, most likely caused by the join of the boot, this had never happened before and I was lost for an answer.
Of all the diabetes control points of order I never gave my best to achieving for far too long, the feet and teeth were not included and always got priority. I can put this down to being told always to wear something solid on the feet and that I have always done. I would add that having seen so many over the years lose limbs and teeth, sure, most were older by far, but it stayed with me until the rest of me, liver, kidneys, eyes, nerves, etc: caught up.
It has taken a few weeks to heal these, but the new skin patches are still raw and need protected.
The only thing that was different to any other day was it was very windy, so much so that I had to take real care on walking with it, as it would just shunt you along and you would be on the deck in no time, but I think with walking into it I was using a different leg or body angle and this caused the rubbing.
As to the lessons learned, put your feet up? Sure, but I would like to suggest, cover them outside always.
I might just throw in another “bloody” point of, non interest? Toenails! In the days of overnight hypo, now long and Lantus past, I would awake on occasions to find patches on the front of my legs with the skin removed looking something like the plague had struck. It took a little while to nut out that it was the BIG toenails ripping into legs and causing this. Solution? Cut the mungral things more often. I still have some of the scars from these as a memento. The things you do to yourself, aye?