Staph Infection

Ok- hopefully this doesn't cross the bounds into too much information but I thought since this happened to me & someone else I know that maybe a good general warning might be worthwhile! As I mentioned last friday I have been dealing with a staph infection. Let me tell you- it is NOT fun and it is REALLY painful! The amazing thing was that I had been at the Dr. with the staph infection and didn't mention because I thought it was a pimple! Yes you heard me right- I thought it was a pimple. Nothing more than an annoying little zit so I didn't mention it to her and consequently treatment wasn't started until 4 days later. In retrospect I could have saved myself so much time and agony if I knew the warning signs of a staph infection! Now this entire post is just from my personal experience and by no means am I a Dr but if you have something that looks like a pimple but is painful you might want to mention it to your Dr. Here is a bit of what the timeline looked like for me. Everytime I tell this to a different Dr I wonder if it would have progressed this much if I would have mentioned it the friday before.

Feb 26- Saw Dr. about a sinus infection. Didn't mention pimple like thing on my stomach.
Feb 27 & 28- was irritated by thing so I tried warm compresses
March 1- decided I was as smart as a Dr and tried performing surgery on myself (clearly never a good idea!) By the evening I was in very bad pain & called the Dr. after hours line. An appointment was made for the next morning.
March 2- Congrats you have a staph infection. Started Bactrim and told to apply warm compresses & come back on Thurs.
March 4- Returned for follow up. At that point my Dr. prescribed a second antibiotic to be taken with the Bactrim and a painkiller. A follow up appointment was made for Monday.
March 5- The infection had changed so much in 24 hours I didn't feel comfortable going into the weekend without my Dr. checking it again. Dr. agreed that the medical intervention was necessary but not quite yet (there wasn't enough infection centralized to cut into- gross I know!) An appointment was made with a surgeon for Monday afternoon. I was told if the wound opened over the weekend to get to the hospital as it would need to be professionally cleaned & packed.
March 6- still in a lot of pain and would was weeping but not open. The infection was very centralized by this point in time.
March 7- Again gross I'm sorry but the wound went from weeping to oozing and I began to fear that healthy tissue would get infected so I went to the ER. Dr. said I was very close to it breaking opening and would have been in before morning anyway. The Dr. gave me a local which is a horror story all its own but I won't share that! Then it was surgically opened, a sample taken in case the antibiotics don't finish clearing it up. The the wound was cleaned, irrigated and dead tissue was taken off. After that it was packed and I was told to keep my appointment with my regular Dr. and the surgeon.
March 8- My primary care told me to continue antibiotics and make a follow up appointment to have the wound repack depending on what the surgeon did that afternoon. Surgeon had no bedside manner whatsoever and yanked packed out without even warning me- grrrrrrrrrrr! After that he said it looked good & to follow up in a week.

All of this because it looked like I had a zit on my stomach and thought it wasn't worth mentioning to the Dr. Moral of the story- if you're not sure have it checked!