Illness, Injury and Medical Advice from the Internet

I'd suggest that it's bacteria in your clothing, rather than your diet / hydration, unless your kidneys are a bit fucked.

It's persistent, doesn't disappear in cooler washes, and reactivates when it warms up (i.e. when you exercise).

Pre-soaking clothes in anti-bacterial solution can help, as can using it in the conditioner tray when you use a washing machine (because, of course, you would never be using fabric conditioner with sportswear).

Washing with biological liquids help, as does washing at 60 degrees. And a quick blast in a tumble drier.

For what it's worth - ammonia / urea are both soluble in water. A few soaks in a bucket would get rid of it.

Mrs Davidual got knee replacement at end of August. Implant is titanium.
She developed shingles a few weeks ago.
She has been very sick yesterday today.
Rash around the surgery site.
Our family doctor is worried that she might be having a reaction to the titanium. He might admit her tomorrow.
Has anyone ever heard of this? I thought ti was inert, hence it’s use in implants.
I am really worried.

I would recommend you get to see her surgeon asap. Reaction to titanium is very unlikely but periprosthetic infection needs to be ruled out safely.

She’s been admitted and it appears to be an infection not a reaction to the ti, thank goodness.

Let's hope it's just a superficial infection like a cellulitis. If its a deep infection treatment can be very complex and sometimes involves surgery as well.

Not so much injury but why would the toes on my right foot get excruciatingly cold riding while the left is fine?

Even on the turbo this morning, very cold in the garage but I put the heater on and was sweating buckets but my right toes were in pain with the cold. Completely fine on the left. Weird circulation?

Edit: Im sure it must be pertinent that my right leg and knee was most badly injured in an argument with a taxi in 2017...

Have you had someone check your bike fit? Maybe you're favouring one side on the saddle + putting pressure on that side? Have you maybe had a previous injury (ages ago) that might be a factor? All just guesswork on the internet, obvs.

(beat me to it with your edit)

Wonky eye . Apart from a hot poker how long for it to clear .
Sorry if your having your lunch.

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It must be that and to be honest if that's the only issue I have from the afore mentioned accident I will take it. I ride a lot and don't have any problems with comfort in general even on very long rides. It is exacerbated in my tight road shoes over my gravel and MTB shoes but it is there all of the time in low temps.

Its a mildish inconvenience tbf.... relatively speaking.

Any burns knowledge in here?

I've done my left hand twice recently and not sure if I'm doing the best job of looking after the injuries.

I didn't do anything to either burn immediately because they were both pretty bad so I figured the damage was done. Plus I did them in my garage which has no running water etc. And also I'm dumb.

1st injury was that I licked the flame from my oxy-propane torch across the top of my thumb. The skin split from the get go so it didn't form a blister. It was a bit mushy(?) looking but doing ok until I bumped it while working on a bike and that pulled some of the mushy skin off. I wrapped it up in a plaster but that seemed to be keeping it moist and the plaster pulled some tissue or whatever from the open area so today I've allowed to to dry out and it's sort of formed a scab. I was thinking that letting it scab would be the best way to get a protective layer on it and get it healing? It's still very tender.

2nd injury was grabbing a steerer tube that I'd been brazing into a crown, I didn't realise it would be so hot, the sizzle of skin was what alerted me.

In this case it's the inside of my thumb, middle, ring and pinky fingers that are injured. There are blisters but they seem to be pretty sturdy (I'm presuming because of the condition of the skin in these areas) except for the pinky which has burst and peeled slightly. I've been wearing a plaster around that one but taken it off as was starting to feel itchy where the adhesive was and it's all looking a bit wet and the skin that was over the blister seems quite loose.

Photos available but not posted yet in order to avoid peeps seeing their dinners again.

Mate, burns are really serious and infections are super easy. Sounds like both should have been doctors visits at the very least.

How about consulting a professional rather than a bike forum 😅

Ach I don’t think they are bad enough to be bothering anyone like doc or minor injuries.

I burn myself pretty regularly but think they must usually be in less annoying/easier to heal areas.

What @soul said

They can be really serious. Go to a minor injuries unit.

I think the ones on the inside of my hand will heal up alright. The pinky is the only one that’s burst and the skin has stuck back down on that one somewhat. The other blisters seem like they aren’t going anywhere and on my fore finger there’s just a little hardening of the skin marked in green.

Given that the pinky seems to be going in the right direction today, despite not looking fantastic after removing the plaster last night, I’m confident that similar treatment will be enough of any of the other blisters do burst.

Edit: I think these are all healing ok and blisters are reducing in size as they were definitely more visible a couple days ago.

I’m sure you’d agree that medical intervention not required for these?

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Useful search terms for understanding wound healing are the difference between 'healing by primary intention' where the edges of a wound can close, and 'secondary intention' where there is loss of material so new tissue must form to close the wound. Burns usually the latter, which is much slower to heal, prone to infection and scarring. Fun.

IME YMMV IANAD, but based on numerous manual work hand injuries treated by doctors (sanding through a thumbnail, etc):

1. Plasters are shit, use non-adhering compresses drenched in disinfectant cream and bandages to secure them in place. You need an annoying amount of bandages for even quite small hand injuries because they fall off otherwise (e.g. for thumb might have to be secured around wrist). Even if you are just in a big bandage for 3-4 days, it will really help the healing of the thumb burn. After that you can decide to use smaller dressings on a cost-benefit analysis.

2. Wet is good for secondary intention healing, new tissue can only grow in the wet, but it must be thoroughly disinfected and well covered (I use iodine baths and then loads of iodine cream, but then I live in Germany). Change dressing every few days. If wounds have dried out, you can dress and cover and they will go soft again, which IME is good. Loose blisters, just disinfect and dress.

3. Any sensation of heat, pain, swelling, stiffness, redness, signs of infection = doctor

After a while you get a sense of what helps your healing, when is the right time to remove dressings and let things dry out a bit. Happy healing!

edit: just seen your photos... TLDR they look fine, next time maybe try keeping moist and disinfected for a day or two to get a shorter overall healing timeframe.

Wet is good for secondary intention healing, new tissue can only grow in the wet, but it must be thoroughly disinfected and well covered…

This is interesting. I was concerned that wet would mean easily disturbed and this would slow healing. I guess that it’s going to be a case of keeping it wrapped up well enough, for long enough and not using the hand to ensure that it’s not getting disturbed.

Not sure if I should try and re-wet the one on the top of my thumb. It’s a bit worse looking which is why I haven’t I posted a pic of it yet 😬

Anyone had a hemorrhoidectomy? Day 7 of recovery here and wondering when it might stop being so painful to poop...

Regarding burns: had large burns on both legs last summer. Burned down to muscle. Infected, weeping and painful. Was prescribed a cream called Flamazine and it was amazing.
Highest recommendation.

Flamazine

Old school (field medicine, at least) is to slap on a shitload of flamazine, wrap around a plastic bag, tape the edges, and leave it for a week.

Any fracture / x ray doctors on here able to look at some hand x rays for me? I crashed last week and am now worried there are multiple fractures (I was told there was only 1).

The hospital I went to is in a different town and I can’t go back and ask. I can go to another clinic but it’s not so straightforward (I’m in Guatemala at the moment).

Not a radiologist, but I am willing to look at random x-ray pictures and profer entirely uneducated opinions.

I was thinking the same.

Post it up and then do some analysis of the 29 completely untrained monkey responses to your potential bone breaks.

Will a company like Everlight report them for a fee?

Don’t sell us short. There’s bound to be a few of us who are trained just enough to acquire a misplaced sense of confidence.

Thanks all, I managed to speak to some doctor friends and have chilled out a bit since earlier (when I was convinced my hand was in a thousand pieces and about to implode).

Their consensus was that x-rays without an in person assessment is pretty limited but they weren’t alarmed by what they saw and were semi confident things would heal fine.

For all the self certified internet doctors out there - answers on a postcard on which of my fingers is about to fall off.

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