So here's a fun story for you tank owners, sorry if it's a bit of a long one.
Last year I was moving some live rock around in my 90g and 20g. I always wear latex or nitrile gloves when I do this, as a close friend once got a terrible infection from scraping an open cut he had on his hand against some live rock in a clients tank. During this rock moving I sliced open a small chunk of my forefinger. Not a big deal, I washed it and sanitized it, then superglued it closed and went back to a scaping. Fast forward to work the next day and my thumb (different finger from the previous cut) was a little swollen. Turns out i had a hang nail when I was "tanking." Now I work with a lot of nurses, and both of my parents and my girlfriend are nurses, so I can say to my own satisfaction that there is nothing better I could have done. Washing my hands with antibacterial soap, sanitizing with iodine, hydrogen peroxide, and rubbing alcohol (the 90% kind). The nurse at work said keep it covered, and put some neosporin on it. I joked that if it didn't get better when did she think I should go to the hospital. When there's a red line up my arm right? We laughed it off and I went back to work. Then, around 5 hours latter, there's that red line snaking out from under my bandaid.
First thing I did was call my close friend's mom from before, she owns are local fish store and is kind of like a surrogate mom to me, and for a little while my boss. So she says "s*** uh.oh..., you have a problem." See, what happened with her son was pretty simple. Bacteria from the tank gets in the cut, infection spreads. But hospitals don't always listen to us when we say "Hey I've got a fish tank and this is probably flesh eating bacteria." They say, "no that's obviously blah blah blah take 2 asprin and call me in the morning." so, my friend ended up having to argue with three different doctors, mean while taking antibiotics that didn't work, until his whole arm was infected. Eventually they contacted our local hand surgeon, who lansed the arm, drained the infection, and got him on some doxicyclin. So, what she tells me is: "go to the emergency room now. When they give you a prescription that isn't doxi, give it back and tell them this is what you need. Here is the phone number of the hand surgeon, tell them to call him. Tell them to call me, just don't leave without the right meds , otherwise you're looking at a 7k bill in the end.
So I go, with my gf, and in the hospital I'm getting checked in, and the nurses and all saying, "oh yeah, I know you're mom, she works in the OR." Its a small town here. Through the rigamaroll and I'm waiting for the PA to come in to my room and a nurse walks in. He looks at my thumb and says "oh yeah you've got an infection there." I say "yeah, it doesn't hurt much, but I'd really like to keep my thumb. I need it to drink coffee." the nurse laughs and wonders off, and my PA comes in. He's a nice young man, and i tell him I need the doxi, and it's from my salt water tank. He listens, does the whole scale of pain, pokes and prods and then leaves to do some research. Meanwhile the male nurse comes back, followed by the PA. "So I've done some research, and i'm going to put you on 400mg twice a day of (I forget), for the staff, and 2000mg a day (some form of doxicyclin). Here's your first dose," hands me a golf ball to sallow, "and you need to come back in the morning to see if that red line is going away. If it hasn't then we'll try something else." the nurse is kind of dumb founded, and gives an uneasy laugh, saying "you weren't kidding about your thumb." I reply with a terse smile and a clipped "Nope."
I didn't need to go back, everything cleared up nicely. Turns out doxicyclin is the most water-soluble antibiotic. Makes sense, as this bacteria comes from the water. Most cases of flesh eating bacteria come from sources of water as well, usually stagnat Lake bottoms or ponds. Moral of my story is this. Gloves are great, but they need to block out all the water. If water gets in and just sits against a cut you're asking for trouble. Exposure for that long is how this stuff gets in. Buy gloves that go up past your shoulders. Or, if you're like me, just keep your hands out of your tank!
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