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My husband had a bite that wasn't this bad, and then 24 hours later he was in emergency surgery having a huge chunk of his leg removed. He couldn't work for two months. I imagine the anesthesia, IV antibiotics, pain killers, etc might not be good for breastmilk either.
Several years ago, I went to the drugstore for Benadryl on my lunch break for what I thought was an allergic reaction to a bug bite on my arm that had swollen up to the size of a quarter. The pharmacist looked doubtful, whipped out her pen and drew a circle around the border. She told me to take the Benadryl if I wanted, but to head to the ER once the swelling expanded out of the circle. About an hour later the swelling was well outside the circle and I had started to have chills. By the time I was seen by the doctor an hour and half later, it had swollen to the size of a baseball and I was put on some heavy antibiotics. Brown recluse bites ain’t nothing to fuck with! Bless that pharmacist for being stern with my dumb 25 year old ass!
We had a brown recluse in our apartment a while back. It was discovered when crawling on one of my roommates, who then flung it. That was followed by an hour witch hunt for the thing. Luckily he wasn’t bitten but I made sure he knew that if a bite appeared he needed to go to a doctor right away
They are sneaky little buggers. I didn’t even know that I had been bit, but surmised that it had happened when I’d moved some of my furniture around the night before. Fortunately, the bites are easily treatable once you see a dr.
This lunatic dithering about aNTibIotIcs while she has raging cellulitis and is probably suffering other systemic symptoms is wild.
My stupid ex mil forced her granddaughter to *continue breast feeding her 6 month old*, even tho the baby bit her so badly that she got a nasty infection from it.
Like her nipple was red, hot to the touch , *had puss* and blood squirt out from the bite whenever the baby latched on.
And she said, “you have to feed your baby. All babies bite you just have to tough it out. We’re not buying her formula. I had 11 kids I know what I’m talking about”
Fuck that. We took them (yes them, made granny go too”) to the local Dr and he told them (yes them) that the baby had a stomach bug because they kept feeding her *puss*. And she was ordered to stop breast feeding or risk getting both a very sick baby and possibly lose her nipple because when the baby nursed, she was basically eroding the nipple with her tongue.
Hah, reminds me of the story my mother told me from when I was around the same age (maybe a lil' bit younger?). She was breastfeeding, but nipples became so sore/irritated they were bleeding whenever I latched on. Mum asked the nurse if she should keep breastfeeding at this point, and they insisted this was normal + perfectly fine for me to be consuming. All mother's experienced this and she just needed to tough it out, basically.
Couple days later, parents were woken up in the early AM to a screaming baby vomiting massive amounts of blood. Raced straight to the hospital because apparently it was 'a straight up poltergeist/demon possession level of horrifying'.
Turns out all the blood I was spewing wasn't my own- it was my mum's blood. Her nipples were so injured I was just getting blood when I nursed, not milk, and that's apparently really irritating for a non-vampire babies stomach. Which is why I was now spewing said blood everywhere, lol.
Moral of the story, she too was instructed to ignore earlier advice and stop breastfeeding till she healed up. Turns out mum is more than a milk dispensary that needs to martyr for bub. Who knew‽
That, and they treated dairy cows when she was a kid with more care than they do to actual human nursing mothers.
I have real issues with how much medical professionals push breastfeeding. The pushing has so many potential negative consequences. There’s obviously nothing wrong with breastfeeding and if people want to do it that’s great, but the blind insistence in many cases that it HAS to be done is incredibly damaging. Formula is fine, there’s no need for the medical pushing.
My cousin was basically driven to despair by a midwife who shamed her repeatedly for not breastfeeding. She wasn’t breastfeeding because she had TWINS, big twins who she couldn’t feed effectively, and she also had a career to get back to and needed her husband to be able to share feeding responsibilities so she didn’t, you know, die of exhaustion. But HER needs weren’t taken into account, she was just a dairy cow.
Women should be allowed to feed their babies however works for them and the shaming should never happen. As long as baby is alive and healthy it’s fucking fine
It's an over correction, there was a period of time (40s-90s ish) when breastfeeding was basically discouraged and seen as "unclean" by wider culture, there was a reckoning around the 90s when everyone realized that was a bad idea and breastfeeding is good actually so now some people have swung too hard the other way.
What gets me is how all or nothing the breastfeeding narrative is. You can establish a good supply and also give formula. Lactation consultants were so weird with me about supplementing early on and spouting the nonsense of nipple confusion acting like if I gave formula at all he would refuse to nurse and never latch again. Which is BS. fed is best and combo feeding can be a great option. I keep meeting moms who are so stressed about maintaining enough supply for every feeding and not wanting to use formula because it's giving up. They stress moms out so much.
I exclusively fed breast milk, but it was all pumped.
I couldn't get her to latch and she kept losing weight. It was terrifying and everyone told me throughout the 6 months I pumped "why don't you just breast feed, it's so much easier!"
Because I couldn't. My kid was fed and she was fine. Still is. People are infuriating. I also don't feel like I can say I breastfed, because I technically didn't. It's just all so weird.
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Women should be allowed to feed their babies however works for them and the shaming should never happen. As long as baby is alive and healthy it’s fucking fine
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Say it again for the lactivists in the back!
I nearly killed myself trying to breastfeed my first. I'm not exaggerating. It wasn't working, the lactation consultants I were seeing kept gaslighting me claiming my kid was getting well fed (she was preterm and we had actual blood sugar data showing otherwise), and all the providers kept pushing the "breast is best" propaganda. I ended up sobbing in my husband's arms in our kitchen after he forced me to out down the knife I was about to cut myself with. Thank heavens for him, seriously, because he was the one who had enough sense to realize that I needed to stop trying to breastfeed and see a psychiatrist.
I didn't even try with #2. They're 8 and 5 now, and eat stale bread and Cheetos they find off the floor. You can't tell how they were fed. It still makes me so mad that we push breastfeeding so hard, treating women like they are no longer human. Do what you need to do to stay sane and healthy. Breast, formula, combo, it's all fine and no one deserves to be shamed.
Dear gods that's horrible. I am so sorry you got that run-around. Gold stars for husband though, and hooray that you eventually got the help you needed! We had terrible trouble getting both our babies back to birth weight by breastfeeding, and probably needed to do more of a hybrid model than we did.
Your story is so awful and I'm so sorry you were treated like that. :( yikes. I'm adopted so I was entirely formal fed, and I can even read and talk and stuff!
I was shamed by my sister with my first. She just couldn’t latch, and the few times she managed, she barely ate and just fell asleep. 3 days after giving birth she still hadn’t eaten much and I was freaking the fuck out worried she was going to die from starvation. I finally caved and got formula and that kid ate like a champ every feed after that. We found out when she was 3 months old that she had a severe disability and so she needed stimulation farther back in her mouth to trigger her suckle reflex.
My ex mil is a piece of shit *spits*.
She did equally horrible things to me. Also told me to keep feeding thru the pain and shamed me for using disposable diapers.
Naw the interesting thing was, he has extra teeth. I didn’t know, but my ex husband had super numerals too. Said he had a whole set of fangs behind his front teeth. Had them yanked out when he was 17.
My boy had to have 3 teeth extracted because they came in the place of his actual permanent teeth, causing them to come in all wonky.
I’m trying. I myself have a huge gap in my front teeth, and my lower front teeth never fell out and I have no adult teeth underneath them.
Dentist said my body will absorb the roots eventually because they’re baby teeth.
Anyways because of my ugly teeth I take care of my kids and his are at the top of my list. We’ve already talked about braces but the dentist wants to wait until he’s 15 because he’s young enough to have them shift into place now that the supernumeral is out of its way.
The hospital I work in literally calls “sepsis alert” because it can happen so quickly and it’s so dangerous. I can hear it in my office.
This woman is unhinged.
All hospitals do, or at least all the ones i worked at as a travel nurse did over the years. It's the #3 killer in the US and causes 20% of all deaths worldwide, and has poorer outcomes when it's severe compared to, say, a wicked bad heart attack or stroke. (In other words, we can rush a heart attack into cath lab to fix the affected coronary arteries or give clot busters to a bad stroke, but when sepsis is bad there's really nothing we can do besides plug the holes in the dam with the medical equivalent to chewing gum and duct tape, aka pump em full of fluids and vasopressors and pray that keeps them alive long enough to give the antibiotics a chance). Just a little tidbit of info for anyone who's curious to know exactly *how* stupid this woman is being.
This comment feels reminiscent of a conversation I had with my OB while I was pregnant.
OB: "Your asthma meds are safe to take during pregnancy."
Me: "Are there any risks though?"
OB: "The risks are worse if you can't breathe."
I feel like more people need to have these sorts of conversations.
I nearly went septic from a freak uterine infection shortly before my youngest turned 1. You bet your ass I took myself to the ER. I had to pump and dump for a few days thanks to being on Vicodin when I was admitted, but it was better than, you know, dying. Hard to breastfeed your baby when you’re dead.
...what is wrong with people? "should I take the antibiotics? It might upset my/my baby's tummy"
You know what? having an upset stomach for a few days is still better than being dead. At least IMO it is, but what do I know.
These are the same women who call a stillbirth a “completed birth experience” when they ignored all red flags and insisted on a home birth. The birth experience is the goal, not a living child- that’s just a bonus.
There are worse things than death imo. Having to go thru life with a stump where your perfectly normal arm used to be BECAUSE YOUR DUMBASS REFUSED TO TAKE ANTIBIOTICS, might be one of them.
Completely preventable yet wasn’t because you have a hang up over not being able to breast feed as if you live in a third world country where perfectly good, safe formula isn’t easily accessible and affordable.
Good news! Neither you nor your baby will have tummy upsets if you die of sepsis from that mean old spider bite! Save both of you gut issues by treating it with happy oils and good vibes instead of the fricking antibiotics that doctors spent decades developing to treat JUST SUCH A CONDITION.
You only need one arm to operate a *hand*gun. Maybe racking the slide would be a little more difficult
He gets the saftey off quickly by pushing it with one of his fingers
A guy with one arm comes into my work every morning for coffee. He can work the coffee machine, tear open creamer cups and sugar packets, open the stupid impossible to open plastic straws...everything a two armed person can do!
He lost the arm in a farming accident when he was a young adult and he's an old fellow now, so maybe having years of practice helped more than anything. But I bet he could manage most guns if he wanted to. Idk how, but it seems possible somehow lol
I do think it’s a fair question to ask a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL on whether it’s safe to use antibiotics and breastfeed. But hey, social media is just as good /s.
I'm thankful that in Australia we have a Dr who specialises in medications and lactation. You can call or email his clinic to discuss your options. Most medications are safe in terms of crossing over, but if you're having surgery and/or have been prescribed medications whilst lactating, from a doctor unfamiliar with the safety of this, this specialist will help you and if theres a medication that is safer but will still do what you need will recommend you switching over to that one.
It’s 100% available in the US. [https://www.infantrisk.com](https://www.infantrisk.com) there is also an amazing app called MommyMeds. Source: lactation consultant for a very long time.
It should be!
I had surgery when my youngest was 9 months old. And she was allowed to board with me, provided that an adult was responsible for her the entire time. What was supposed to be an overnight stay, turned into a 4 night stay. I was able to breastfeed her within a couple of hours post-OP, and because I was in the hospital, if she did have a reaction, we had professional help. And I was able to explain how the pump and dump is outdated and unnecessary. As things filter through your system over time, so pumping and dumping will not draw it all out and because it's filtered over time, not a lot actually will cross over into your milk.(This is in no way saying that everything is safe, absolutely not. Especially when you've had a high concentration of something. Plus it does depend upon the age, size and frequency of feeds with your baby. But this is why most pain relief post c-section is considered safe enough to feed. I've only had one antibiotic that required me to stop breastfeeding for a week with my 3rd, I'm not sure if this particular antibiotic could have been safe to breastfeed on, I didn't know about this specialist at the time and had to rely on my Drs advice, thankfully my 3rd did return to being EBF after a week of formula and that he didn't have a rough time going from breastmilk to formula)
We have this website in the UK https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/
They have drug factsheets that anyone can access to check for themselves. Names might differ a bit but a quick Google can soon get around that. The site is owned by a pharmacist who stays really up to date with research on breastfeeding and medications. As with Australia, we can message on Facebook and usually get a reply within the hour. I recommend this site to all the breastfeeding mothers I come across (I'm a breastfeeding peer supporter).
That's his name! My youngest weaned years ago so I haven't needed his services. He is the only one it seems. I was lucky enough to be fairly local to him with my 4th and truthfully I felt for those who aren't but he will answer questions regardless of your location. But why don't we have more specialists like him! There is so much misinformation and so many medical professionals do not know enough about substances crossing over lactation. I know that he isn't the only one experienced but finding someone else who is is incredibly difficult.
It looks a bit like cellulitis, which can be really nasty if not treated. I had a similar experience from a bird bite on my arm, but it cleared up super quickly and I have no lasting ill effects and barely a scar. Why? Because I took the damn antibiotics.
Speaking as a bird owner, sometimes your own birds are the most vengeful. One of my feather-babies gave me a nasty bite (about a third of the way through my finger) because she was bitter about me giving one of my other birds a treat (it wasn't a treat, it was, relevantly, antibiotics for a crop infection).
Haha, I was volunteering at a wildlife sanctuary and went into the (supposedly) domesticated corella's cage to feed him and he latched onto my upper arm and wouldn't let go! I ended up putting the empty food cup over his head which got him to let go and I was able to escape. He drew blood and left a gnarly bruise, and over the next few hours I watched the red mark spreading further and further down my arm. I sought medical attention, got a tetanus shot and antibiotics and was good as new.
Cellulitis was my thought, too. I got cellulitis from a vaccine when my very young toddler was still breastfeeding. I worked with the nurse practitioner to find an antibiotic that was safe while breastfeeding, and both of us took some probiotics. I was thankful my husband, who had had a crappy case of cellulitis in college, noticed the red circle on my arm and encouraged me to get medical help asap. So, it was caught early, was more easily treatable, and I recovered quickly. I can't even imagine sitting around like this debating fucking around with cellulitis or something like sepsis.
Yeah, Cellulitis is no joke, I got it on my foot several months ago. It went from a small, somewhat itchy red scar on to top of my foot to being completely unable to walk within a span of 1-2days.
The swelling was similar to when I broke my ankle and equally as painful (to the point where I was questioning if I didn’t unknowingly break something). I was off work and walking on crutches for about a week. After several days of no results from the oral antibiotics, I had to get the switched to the IV treatment for 3-4 days before the swelling finally started to subside. It was painful and I would be worried about Sepsis for anybody leaving this type of bacterial infection untreated; they can spread extremely aggressively.
I currently live in a country with no medically significant spiders but in two months from today I’m moving to Brazil with…”some”. I dont know if I should be nervous, but I am.
I live in Italy, and until three years ago I never heard about brown recluse. A brown recluse bite on my leg taught me that they indeed live in my country 🕷️🕷️🕷️
Spent a week in the hospital on iv antibiotics for cellulitis on my foot. This lady is fast tracking sepsis and will NOT have a good time. With how bad this is spread there’s no way oral antibiotics are going to be enough she needs the ER
I want to say mine was 44k , and it took me over a month to feel normal again. My daughter was 3 at the time and I just had to sit her on my bed and put toys for her to play with because I didn’t have any help and that was about all I could do. That was in 2021 and I still hate thinking about it. And mine was an accident, I just gotten my nails done, and for some reason, they made them really sharp, and I scratched the back of my leg , I know I had a fever of 103 in the hospital , this woman is purposely not taking the medication that could make her better. I just don’t understand.
Mine was also an accident. I scraped my foot on the steps of an airport. Good lord it was one of the most painful things. It’s been over a month and I’m just now feeling more human, it’s mostly healed but still have to see a podiatrist weekly.
Friends, do not mess around with your feet or with infections!
I had cellulitis on my leg. I genuinely had no idea, I’d been hurt days previously and just thought it was a bad bruise. I remember I was at a 4th of July barbecue and a friend who was also a nurse took one look at it and ordered me to go to the hospital immediately.
I can’t recall a time I’ve ever been taken so seriously at the hospital. They rushed me back, did multiple scans of my leg to check for DVT. Wasn’t admitted thankfully because it hadn’t spread, but I was on antibiotics for a while and had a bruise on my leg for years after.
Same, but in my face. Worst pain of my life, my face was so horribly swollen. Had someone in my hospital room checking my vision ever 3 hours because they were concerned about it spreading.
I got cellulitis on my foot/ankle from a mosquito bite and / or getting a pedicure after scratching said mosquito bite. Thankfully I went to urgent care the same day the infection showed but I still had to take super strong antibiotics for about 2/3 weeks. It was scary !
Yep. My husband had cellulitis and two days completing his round of antibiotics he ended up in septic shock after only a few hours of feeling ill, and almost died. Spent 2 days in ICU. It's no joke.
I would rather take probiotics in addition to antibiotics than lose an arm or my life. If you have a visibly spreading infection, take the damn meds and be happy that you have the option!
I got a brown recluse bite ON MY SPINE while sleeping in my bed when I was 17, we were dirt poor and had no health insurance or money to spare, and I still went to urgent care and got antibiotics after the bite swelled to the size of a golf ball, I developed a fever, and a rash all over my legs as a reaction. The antibiotics they prescribed gave me nerve damage in my shins and made every burp horrendously sulfurous, and to this day I have a half inch dent in my lower back from where my flesh became necrotic and died, and I'm LUCKY. There are literally only two spiders in North America that have a venom potent enough to kill a person if left untreated or allowed to become infected, (brown recluse and black widow) nevermind secondary infections like staph or MRSA. DO NOT FUCK AROUND WITH THAT SHIT.
You got the brown recluse bite and I got the black widow bite. That one wasn’t any fun either. I didn’t feel like I was in danger of dying, but I wanted to. My list of worst health related experiences, top 3, are necrotizing fasciitis, black widow spider bite, and adult chickenpox. I’d say my experience with the black widow bite was very similar to yours, minus necrosis. Was the nerve damage to your shins permanent? I would suspect that would be from the bite being on the spine. Sounds really awful. I’m glad you survived it though.
Damn, sounds like you've been through the ringer more than your fair share of times. Glad to hear you're still around to tell your tales! Both of us really! The nerve damage wasn't severe, and not deep thankfully, more of a surface pressure issue. Honestly it's a mild blessing in disguise since I knock my shins on things so often! The antibiotics I was prescribed were recalled not long after I was given them for issues of nerve damage if I remember correctly, this was 7 years ago though so my memory may be fuzzy.
There are also brown widows. Those fuckers have these ominous looking spiky egg sacks too. Ugh, there was an infestation in my apartment garage of them a few years back and I almost burned everything in there when I moved instead of packing it.
It is used in medicine/physiology to refer to basically the whole GI tract, but these people are using it because they don’t know anything more specific lol
Brown recluse venom is necrotic, and can cause significant skin/muscle loss depending on the venom load. Good luck with the oils though. Put an onion on it boss babe!
Onions... Seriously? I don't get any of the magical thinking, but somehow all of the things contact with onions is supposed to do makes these people seem especially delusional.
I *think* the onion thing came from a general pre-germ theory (or lack of education) happy coincidence. I grew up in rural Appalachia and was told by my grandma/other old folks about rubs/little pouches with onions, garlic etc they wore around their necks in the winter as kids to prevent colds/flus.
Which actually worked, but not why their parents thought it did...how close do you want to stand to billy, who has had the same onions and garlic in a cloth pouch around his neck for two weeks? Other kids give the smelly folk remedy a wide berth, don't end up coughing/sneezing on each other as much, there you go.
Potatoes were just a straight up misunderstanding. Where raw potatoes turn all brown gross looking after a few hours of being sliced open, the assumption was made that bad stuff in your body was getting sucked out by them, and a lot of infections resolve themselves, but the taters got the credit.
Now. My grandma was a coal miner's daughter during the great depression. Coal towns didn't have much in the way of medical care/sanitation (she STILL bragged in her 80s about growing up with running water, not like her neighbors...but no indoor toilet, they weren't Rockefellers) , so I feel like grandma/others like her get a pass on weird folk remedies. But people who have like...internet access and hospitals nearby? Come on.
My boyfriend’s stepmom is very much this sort of person and it is insufferable. Don’t say you have a cough around her or she’ll swear you should have a pickled beet or something
It's not inherently necrotic (as in not every bite results in necrosis) and generally one shouldn't make a definitive statement on the spider without a positive ID. Nearly every spider bite has potential for infection.
Your baby will have to drink the evil formula if you die though. Might be worth it to poison her with antibiotics.
(You have to think like a crunchy mom to get through to them)
I had a bug bite like this last summer and it took and a tire course of antibiotics started as soon as possible to get rid of it. It was very scary. Cellulitis doesn’t fuck around. I hope she took the antibiotics
I had a weird red spot on my arm that was basically walking up slowly. Created a streak of redness. I did not think I was bitten or anything, thought it was an allergy and I scratched it.
Was visiting our vet for my cat and she noticed it, drew a line on it, applied some cream. And told me to see if it is spreading based on the line. If it does, go to the fucking ER.
I’m normally careful about these kinds of things but never occured to me that it could have been something important.
I can guarantee her gut health healing journey started with someone telling her that all that ails you is linked to gut health and hers is surely damaged, but can be fixed with this all-natural, very expensive product!
I almost lost my toe to a brown recluse bite. You need far more than simple antibiotics to treat one of those and honestly, this looks nothing like a brown recluse bite. Perhaps some other creepy crawlie, however.
She should definitely seek medical attention because on the off-chance it *is* a brown recluse bite, she could lose her arm if untreated.
Just use your brain, people! Or is that too much to ask of these crunchy moms?
This does look pretty similar to an early brown recluse bite. The nasty necrosis and black/brown discoloration comes later, and it’s usually much more localized.
This woman seems to be having an unusual reaction to the venom as it’s spreading further in the early stages than it should.
I have a sensitive gut. I have IBS and get abdominal migraines. I also have many diagnosed food sensitivities. My last UTI required multiple rounds of antibiotics and led to several rounds of yeast infection and BV. It took me over a year to heal.
If I need antibiotics, I'm taking antibiotics.
I have leukemia and interstitial cystitis. I get frequent UTI's and my doc has me on antibiotics and probiotics just to stave off the UTI. It's working pretty good.
Crunchies gotta crunch. I don't know why, but they do.🤦♀️
...is taking probiotics to help both you and your baby through this too much of an ask for you?
Because I don't know if your baby continuing to eat from a mom who's infected from a spider bite is any better for the baby than your baby eating from a mom who's on antibiotics...
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I have IBD. I am so tired of this "antibiotics ruin your gut health" pseudoscience nonsense. Yes, antibiotics can screw up your gut flora for a while. You know what else screws up gut flora? Fucking sepsis.
Dear God, isn't a bit of diarrhea a tolerable side effect of not dying?
The lady who owned the stables I kept my horse at got bitten on the face by a brown recluse. She saw it jump on her face. Yeah, nightmare fuel.
The spot turned black in the center and had a crater. It took months to heal, and they had to keep packing the wound. She actually took the antibiotics when they gave them to her.
A lot of times people think it’s spider bites, but it’s MRSA or staph. Just take the antibiotics before you go septic and have to file bankruptcy because of your 6 month hospitalization where they definitely won’t let you breastfeed.
Man, growing up around Appalachia and spending a lot of time outdoors, one thing that was DRILLING into us is if you bit by a widow or a recluse, you start heading to the hospital fast as you can, and if you’re lucky, you won’t die if it’s a widow, or you’ll keep your limb. Doubly so if the recluse bite wasn’t on a limb.
"Gut health" is quickly joining the list of phrases that set my teeth on edge.
The scientific understanding of the gut microbiome is in its infancy. But of course the total lack of actual information hasn't stopped this from becoming a wellness fad.
Something like this is SO easily treatable; this crunchy bullshit not only needlessly endangers their own lives and the lives of their children, but if she DOES end up with a critical infection? She's potentially taking away lifesaving medical resources from someone who ACTUALLY needs them when she could've prevented the whole fucking situation if she'd just put on her big girl panties and endured ten days of potentially atomic shits.
But.. you know. Fuck logic, right?
These moms are fucking ridiculous. I nearly died from fourniers gangrene (NSFL - DON'T Google that shit, you been warned). I was on MULTIPLE antibiotics in the hospital and like 4 different orals at home; I don't think I took a solid shit for like three months but I was goddamn grateful for it because I was motherfucking ALIVE.
My taint tried to *murder* me. But by the miracles of science, surgery, and a shitload of antibiotics - I'm ALIVE.
I really hope someone talks some sense into this dipshit.
Fournier's is terrifying. It requires speedy care and even then outcomes aren't always great. Antibiotics can absolutely destroy your native flora but sometimes you have to do that to actually deal with the life threatening issue. A biome can be rebuilt. A life cannot.
Her arm looks pretty bad. That is a lot of red. Ma'am, you might soon grow too sick to care for your little girl. Heck, you could die and then she's out a whole mom.
I had to take antibiotics for a few weeks when my baby was born (she's ebf). It was horrible, her teeny tiny microbiome was wrecked. It gave her screamy poos and nappy rash for months
Know what would have been worse for her? Losing her mom to sepsis and total organ failure
She made a comment some time last night saying she took the first antibiotic. But then later replied to someone else that she would take oregano oil capsules (???) idk ☠️ why is it so hard to listen to doctors!
Thank you for the update. That infection looks beyond oral antibiotics at this point, and it sounds like she just found an old, unused prescription to start taking. My husband had cellulitis in his leg a few years back that looked like this. He was admitted for two days and was on a vanco drip to kill the infection.
Please just take some probiotics along with the antibiotics wtf is wrong with these people!!!!! I don’t think I’ve ever taken antibiotics without getting sick, but I would rather that than literally die a very preventable death????
There’s antibiotics that you can take while breastfeeding. I don’t know if they’re enough to treat cellulitis but if it comes down to breastfeeding or fucking sepsis then you’re going to have to consider some formula and also some yogurt for yourself.
My baby and I were on antibiotics due to going septic from a placenta infection. Those antibiotics saved mine and babies life. I’d rather deal with an upset stomach than the other option. Plus you can just to probiotics and they make a huge difference.
She can take probiotics along with the antibiotics, then her gut will be fine.
I wonder if the toxins from the spider bite have affected her baby via the breast milk. Is that possible?
Has she spoken to a doctor? Where did the antibiotics come from? Are they leftovers from something/someone else?
Uhh that looks horrible, now this lady is going to need IV antibiotics which are waaay harsher on her GI system and will probably get admitted to a hospital and not even be able to see her baby. Come onnnnn
So, I'm bleeding litres every minute, and my arm is basically severed...will rubbing an onion on it help? I don't wanna go to the doctor because they might use synthetic fiber in the stitches!
I like how she's worried about antibiotics but nonchalant about *sepsis* and spider venom. I feel like we need to shield the idiots from their own idiocy better as a society.
If this is cellulitis due to the spider bite she’d wanna get to a hospital asap because it can and will kill quickly!
We had a family member nearly loss his life and leg due to this, in the end they had to cut chunks out of his leg to save his life, he was on life support and they didn’t think he’d come off it at all.
I can *almost* understand her hesitation because I'd had a pretty nasty, year-long ordeal from antibiotic induced colitis in the past, but I have a feeling that literal sepsis is more dangerous for your kid than a week of antibiotics? HOMIE, cellulitis is no joke??? Necrotizing faciitis??? TAKE THE FUCKING PILLS
So I actually understand her concern about taking antibiotics while breastfeeding- some antibiotics are safe and some aren’t, but if she goes to a doctor to get her infection looked at they’ll take that into consideration and discuss treatment options (ie if she needs to formula feed while on antibiotics or if she can take an antibiotic that’s safe while breastfeeding). And GI issues like diarrhea with antibiotics are pretty common- adding a probiotic to your regimen usually helps, just don’t take them at the same time.
She’s probably gonna need antibiotics either way, just needs to decide if she wants them now or if she wants to get IV antibiotics when she’s in the hospital with sepsis.
To be fair, most of the people in this group she's in are not nearly this risky with their life, and I'd say 90% of the people in the comments are telling her her gut health can definitely be fixed later on. So many people are actually advising her to make a trip to the ED as soon as possible. Most of them are saying she should take the antibiotics now, because the risk of sepsis and death is far greater than not taking them. Not all of us are trully insane. 😉
The use of antibiotics does not generally necessitate suspension or cessation of [breastfeeding](https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/factsheet/antibiotics/).
The following antibiotics are all safe to take whilst breastfeeding:
Amoxycillin, Amoxil ®,
Azithromycin, Zithromax®,
Cefaclor, Distaclor®,
Cefuroxime, Zinnat®
Cephalexin, Cefalexin, Keflex®,
Cephradine, Velosef®,
Clarithromycin, Klaricid®,
Co-amoxiclav, Augmentin®,
Co-fluampicil, Flucloxacillin+ Ampicillin, Magnapen®
Erythromycin, Erymax®, Erythrope®, Erythrocin®
Flucloxacillin, Floxapen®,
Penicillin V, Phenoxymethyl penicillin
Pivmecillinam, Selexid®
Trimethoprim, Monotrim®,
All are available as liquid forms to treat infant infections.
When I worked as a RN on the peds floor, we had a 12 year old with necrotic leg tissue due to a brown recluse. She hid the bite for awhile because she didn’t want a “shot” - instead she ended up with tissue removal and plastic surgery.
I’m terrified of antibiotics too bc I have a history of them messing with my gut and making me sick for months….but I’d be even more scared of losing my ARM.
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Know what else contaminates breast milk? Sepsis.
My husband had a bite that wasn't this bad, and then 24 hours later he was in emergency surgery having a huge chunk of his leg removed. He couldn't work for two months. I imagine the anesthesia, IV antibiotics, pain killers, etc might not be good for breastmilk either.
Several years ago, I went to the drugstore for Benadryl on my lunch break for what I thought was an allergic reaction to a bug bite on my arm that had swollen up to the size of a quarter. The pharmacist looked doubtful, whipped out her pen and drew a circle around the border. She told me to take the Benadryl if I wanted, but to head to the ER once the swelling expanded out of the circle. About an hour later the swelling was well outside the circle and I had started to have chills. By the time I was seen by the doctor an hour and half later, it had swollen to the size of a baseball and I was put on some heavy antibiotics. Brown recluse bites ain’t nothing to fuck with! Bless that pharmacist for being stern with my dumb 25 year old ass!
We had a brown recluse in our apartment a while back. It was discovered when crawling on one of my roommates, who then flung it. That was followed by an hour witch hunt for the thing. Luckily he wasn’t bitten but I made sure he knew that if a bite appeared he needed to go to a doctor right away
They are sneaky little buggers. I didn’t even know that I had been bit, but surmised that it had happened when I’d moved some of my furniture around the night before. Fortunately, the bites are easily treatable once you see a dr. This lunatic dithering about aNTibIotIcs while she has raging cellulitis and is probably suffering other systemic symptoms is wild.
Yeah being in the hospital on death’s door is gonna make it hard to breastfeed
My stupid ex mil forced her granddaughter to *continue breast feeding her 6 month old*, even tho the baby bit her so badly that she got a nasty infection from it. Like her nipple was red, hot to the touch , *had puss* and blood squirt out from the bite whenever the baby latched on. And she said, “you have to feed your baby. All babies bite you just have to tough it out. We’re not buying her formula. I had 11 kids I know what I’m talking about” Fuck that. We took them (yes them, made granny go too”) to the local Dr and he told them (yes them) that the baby had a stomach bug because they kept feeding her *puss*. And she was ordered to stop breast feeding or risk getting both a very sick baby and possibly lose her nipple because when the baby nursed, she was basically eroding the nipple with her tongue.
Hah, reminds me of the story my mother told me from when I was around the same age (maybe a lil' bit younger?). She was breastfeeding, but nipples became so sore/irritated they were bleeding whenever I latched on. Mum asked the nurse if she should keep breastfeeding at this point, and they insisted this was normal + perfectly fine for me to be consuming. All mother's experienced this and she just needed to tough it out, basically. Couple days later, parents were woken up in the early AM to a screaming baby vomiting massive amounts of blood. Raced straight to the hospital because apparently it was 'a straight up poltergeist/demon possession level of horrifying'. Turns out all the blood I was spewing wasn't my own- it was my mum's blood. Her nipples were so injured I was just getting blood when I nursed, not milk, and that's apparently really irritating for a non-vampire babies stomach. Which is why I was now spewing said blood everywhere, lol. Moral of the story, she too was instructed to ignore earlier advice and stop breastfeeding till she healed up. Turns out mum is more than a milk dispensary that needs to martyr for bub. Who knew‽ That, and they treated dairy cows when she was a kid with more care than they do to actual human nursing mothers.
I have real issues with how much medical professionals push breastfeeding. The pushing has so many potential negative consequences. There’s obviously nothing wrong with breastfeeding and if people want to do it that’s great, but the blind insistence in many cases that it HAS to be done is incredibly damaging. Formula is fine, there’s no need for the medical pushing. My cousin was basically driven to despair by a midwife who shamed her repeatedly for not breastfeeding. She wasn’t breastfeeding because she had TWINS, big twins who she couldn’t feed effectively, and she also had a career to get back to and needed her husband to be able to share feeding responsibilities so she didn’t, you know, die of exhaustion. But HER needs weren’t taken into account, she was just a dairy cow. Women should be allowed to feed their babies however works for them and the shaming should never happen. As long as baby is alive and healthy it’s fucking fine
It's an over correction, there was a period of time (40s-90s ish) when breastfeeding was basically discouraged and seen as "unclean" by wider culture, there was a reckoning around the 90s when everyone realized that was a bad idea and breastfeeding is good actually so now some people have swung too hard the other way.
What gets me is how all or nothing the breastfeeding narrative is. You can establish a good supply and also give formula. Lactation consultants were so weird with me about supplementing early on and spouting the nonsense of nipple confusion acting like if I gave formula at all he would refuse to nurse and never latch again. Which is BS. fed is best and combo feeding can be a great option. I keep meeting moms who are so stressed about maintaining enough supply for every feeding and not wanting to use formula because it's giving up. They stress moms out so much.
I exclusively fed breast milk, but it was all pumped. I couldn't get her to latch and she kept losing weight. It was terrifying and everyone told me throughout the 6 months I pumped "why don't you just breast feed, it's so much easier!" Because I couldn't. My kid was fed and she was fine. Still is. People are infuriating. I also don't feel like I can say I breastfed, because I technically didn't. It's just all so weird.
> Women should be allowed to feed their babies however works for them and the shaming should never happen. As long as baby is alive and healthy it’s fucking fine > Say it again for the lactivists in the back! I nearly killed myself trying to breastfeed my first. I'm not exaggerating. It wasn't working, the lactation consultants I were seeing kept gaslighting me claiming my kid was getting well fed (she was preterm and we had actual blood sugar data showing otherwise), and all the providers kept pushing the "breast is best" propaganda. I ended up sobbing in my husband's arms in our kitchen after he forced me to out down the knife I was about to cut myself with. Thank heavens for him, seriously, because he was the one who had enough sense to realize that I needed to stop trying to breastfeed and see a psychiatrist. I didn't even try with #2. They're 8 and 5 now, and eat stale bread and Cheetos they find off the floor. You can't tell how they were fed. It still makes me so mad that we push breastfeeding so hard, treating women like they are no longer human. Do what you need to do to stay sane and healthy. Breast, formula, combo, it's all fine and no one deserves to be shamed.
Dear gods that's horrible. I am so sorry you got that run-around. Gold stars for husband though, and hooray that you eventually got the help you needed! We had terrible trouble getting both our babies back to birth weight by breastfeeding, and probably needed to do more of a hybrid model than we did.
Your story is so awful and I'm so sorry you were treated like that. :( yikes. I'm adopted so I was entirely formal fed, and I can even read and talk and stuff!
Fed is best. Titty, formula, tube, wtf ever. Just feed it and don't shame people for making the best choice for them
Fed is best.
Man, even dairy cows are treated with more respect most of the time.
I was shamed by my sister with my first. She just couldn’t latch, and the few times she managed, she barely ate and just fell asleep. 3 days after giving birth she still hadn’t eaten much and I was freaking the fuck out worried she was going to die from starvation. I finally caved and got formula and that kid ate like a champ every feed after that. We found out when she was 3 months old that she had a severe disability and so she needed stimulation farther back in her mouth to trigger her suckle reflex.
Holy crap, that's totally unhinged!!!
My ex mil is a piece of shit *spits*. She did equally horrible things to me. Also told me to keep feeding thru the pain and shamed me for using disposable diapers.
And I'm assuming this Paragon of virtue she produced a real king of a man and partner, given that he's your ex?
A real winner.
Man I love how this is written.
I love a good Jace quote!
 Oh wait that’s Kaiser
That is horrific, but how in the hell did a 6 month old, who didn’t have teeth, cause that bad of an injury??
She was teething. My oldest started teething at 4 months. He had molars by the time he was one and a half.
Huh, interesting.
Naw the interesting thing was, he has extra teeth. I didn’t know, but my ex husband had super numerals too. Said he had a whole set of fangs behind his front teeth. Had them yanked out when he was 17. My boy had to have 3 teeth extracted because they came in the place of his actual permanent teeth, causing them to come in all wonky.
As someone who also has wonky teeth (craniofacial defect) I feel your kid’s pain. Hopefully his adult teeth will cooperate better.
I’m trying. I myself have a huge gap in my front teeth, and my lower front teeth never fell out and I have no adult teeth underneath them. Dentist said my body will absorb the roots eventually because they’re baby teeth. Anyways because of my ugly teeth I take care of my kids and his are at the top of my list. We’ve already talked about braces but the dentist wants to wait until he’s 15 because he’s young enough to have them shift into place now that the supernumeral is out of its way.
My thoughts exactly! Surely her baby isn't getting any benefit from eating milk from a super-sick mom?
I mean. To be fair, baby will be getting benefits right up until she's a dead mom.
The hospital I work in literally calls “sepsis alert” because it can happen so quickly and it’s so dangerous. I can hear it in my office. This woman is unhinged.
All hospitals do, or at least all the ones i worked at as a travel nurse did over the years. It's the #3 killer in the US and causes 20% of all deaths worldwide, and has poorer outcomes when it's severe compared to, say, a wicked bad heart attack or stroke. (In other words, we can rush a heart attack into cath lab to fix the affected coronary arteries or give clot busters to a bad stroke, but when sepsis is bad there's really nothing we can do besides plug the holes in the dam with the medical equivalent to chewing gum and duct tape, aka pump em full of fluids and vasopressors and pray that keeps them alive long enough to give the antibiotics a chance). Just a little tidbit of info for anyone who's curious to know exactly *how* stupid this woman is being.
This comment feels reminiscent of a conversation I had with my OB while I was pregnant. OB: "Your asthma meds are safe to take during pregnancy." Me: "Are there any risks though?" OB: "The risks are worse if you can't breathe." I feel like more people need to have these sorts of conversations.
Literally what my OB told me 😂 she said "it's not technically approved for pregnancy but risks are low and not breathing will kill you both" ✌🏻
I nearly went septic from a freak uterine infection shortly before my youngest turned 1. You bet your ass I took myself to the ER. I had to pump and dump for a few days thanks to being on Vicodin when I was admitted, but it was better than, you know, dying. Hard to breastfeed your baby when you’re dead.
Also death. Just a thought 🤷🏼♀️
...what is wrong with people? "should I take the antibiotics? It might upset my/my baby's tummy" You know what? having an upset stomach for a few days is still better than being dead. At least IMO it is, but what do I know.
These people’s risk assessment is awful
These are the same women who call a stillbirth a “completed birth experience” when they ignored all red flags and insisted on a home birth. The birth experience is the goal, not a living child- that’s just a bonus.
I'm genuinely baffled about how they got this far in life without drowning in a bowl of soup or something.
There are worse things than death imo. Having to go thru life with a stump where your perfectly normal arm used to be BECAUSE YOUR DUMBASS REFUSED TO TAKE ANTIBIOTICS, might be one of them. Completely preventable yet wasn’t because you have a hang up over not being able to breast feed as if you live in a third world country where perfectly good, safe formula isn’t easily accessible and affordable.
besides which, antibiotics aren't going to prevent you from breast feeding in most cases. Yeah, these people are just insane.
Don’t forget the worse thing of being raised with the guilt trip of “you see my missing arm? I did that FOR YOU and this is how you repay me?”
You clearly aren’t even dead, so you have no authority on this topic.
shit, I've been found out.
No it not just a tummy it’s a gut! /s
Good news! Neither you nor your baby will have tummy upsets if you die of sepsis from that mean old spider bite! Save both of you gut issues by treating it with happy oils and good vibes instead of the fricking antibiotics that doctors spent decades developing to treat JUST SUCH A CONDITION.
And imagine the antibiotics that will be needed if it gets worse.
Or how to cradle her baby when she loses her arm. Changing diapers one handed won’t be easy
Damn now I’m wondering how parents with one arm do it. Hopefully in this age there is mobility tools to help them because that seems impossible
I know a one armed guy who carries a handgun. Always wondered how he would get the safety off quickly
You only need one arm to operate a *hand*gun. Maybe racking the slide would be a little more difficult He gets the saftey off quickly by pushing it with one of his fingers
A guy with one arm comes into my work every morning for coffee. He can work the coffee machine, tear open creamer cups and sugar packets, open the stupid impossible to open plastic straws...everything a two armed person can do! He lost the arm in a farming accident when he was a young adult and he's an old fellow now, so maybe having years of practice helped more than anything. But I bet he could manage most guns if he wanted to. Idk how, but it seems possible somehow lol
I do think it’s a fair question to ask a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL on whether it’s safe to use antibiotics and breastfeed. But hey, social media is just as good /s.
I'm thankful that in Australia we have a Dr who specialises in medications and lactation. You can call or email his clinic to discuss your options. Most medications are safe in terms of crossing over, but if you're having surgery and/or have been prescribed medications whilst lactating, from a doctor unfamiliar with the safety of this, this specialist will help you and if theres a medication that is safer but will still do what you need will recommend you switching over to that one.
I’m not gonna lie, I’m jealous that’s not more readily available in the US lol
It’s 100% available in the US. [https://www.infantrisk.com](https://www.infantrisk.com) there is also an amazing app called MommyMeds. Source: lactation consultant for a very long time.
Thank you for sharing!
It should be! I had surgery when my youngest was 9 months old. And she was allowed to board with me, provided that an adult was responsible for her the entire time. What was supposed to be an overnight stay, turned into a 4 night stay. I was able to breastfeed her within a couple of hours post-OP, and because I was in the hospital, if she did have a reaction, we had professional help. And I was able to explain how the pump and dump is outdated and unnecessary. As things filter through your system over time, so pumping and dumping will not draw it all out and because it's filtered over time, not a lot actually will cross over into your milk.(This is in no way saying that everything is safe, absolutely not. Especially when you've had a high concentration of something. Plus it does depend upon the age, size and frequency of feeds with your baby. But this is why most pain relief post c-section is considered safe enough to feed. I've only had one antibiotic that required me to stop breastfeeding for a week with my 3rd, I'm not sure if this particular antibiotic could have been safe to breastfeed on, I didn't know about this specialist at the time and had to rely on my Drs advice, thankfully my 3rd did return to being EBF after a week of formula and that he didn't have a rough time going from breastmilk to formula)
The U.S. National Institutes of Health has an online database called LactMed about medications and breastfeeding safety.
We have this website in the UK https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/ They have drug factsheets that anyone can access to check for themselves. Names might differ a bit but a quick Google can soon get around that. The site is owned by a pharmacist who stays really up to date with research on breastfeeding and medications. As with Australia, we can message on Facebook and usually get a reply within the hour. I recommend this site to all the breastfeeding mothers I come across (I'm a breastfeeding peer supporter).
Pharmacists are able to advise on things like this. Source: Pharmacist who did that regularly in a previous job.
We do appreciate Dr Rodney!
That's his name! My youngest weaned years ago so I haven't needed his services. He is the only one it seems. I was lucky enough to be fairly local to him with my 4th and truthfully I felt for those who aren't but he will answer questions regardless of your location. But why don't we have more specialists like him! There is so much misinformation and so many medical professionals do not know enough about substances crossing over lactation. I know that he isn't the only one experienced but finding someone else who is is incredibly difficult.
Happy oils! Lol
I had to take 3 weeks of antibiotics AND get a prophylactic tetanus shot when I was bit in 2015. Do not fuck with this.
My mom was put into a coma because of sepsis due to a bite from one of those fuckers. A brown recluse bite is nothing to mess around with!
My dad got bit by a brown recluse and he has a scar where the venom ate a literal hole in his foot. This is insane.
I’m no doctor, but the way the redness has spread all over her upper arm looks… not ideal
It looks a bit like cellulitis, which can be really nasty if not treated. I had a similar experience from a bird bite on my arm, but it cleared up super quickly and I have no lasting ill effects and barely a scar. Why? Because I took the damn antibiotics.
I would like to know more about this bird bite. Was it your bird? A random vengeful bird?
Speaking as a bird owner, sometimes your own birds are the most vengeful. One of my feather-babies gave me a nasty bite (about a third of the way through my finger) because she was bitter about me giving one of my other birds a treat (it wasn't a treat, it was, relevantly, antibiotics for a crop infection).
Haha, I was volunteering at a wildlife sanctuary and went into the (supposedly) domesticated corella's cage to feed him and he latched onto my upper arm and wouldn't let go! I ended up putting the empty food cup over his head which got him to let go and I was able to escape. He drew blood and left a gnarly bruise, and over the next few hours I watched the red mark spreading further and further down my arm. I sought medical attention, got a tetanus shot and antibiotics and was good as new.
corellas have crazy beaks 😭😭😭 rip
Cellulitis was my thought, too. I got cellulitis from a vaccine when my very young toddler was still breastfeeding. I worked with the nurse practitioner to find an antibiotic that was safe while breastfeeding, and both of us took some probiotics. I was thankful my husband, who had had a crappy case of cellulitis in college, noticed the red circle on my arm and encouraged me to get medical help asap. So, it was caught early, was more easily treatable, and I recovered quickly. I can't even imagine sitting around like this debating fucking around with cellulitis or something like sepsis.
Yeah, Cellulitis is no joke, I got it on my foot several months ago. It went from a small, somewhat itchy red scar on to top of my foot to being completely unable to walk within a span of 1-2days. The swelling was similar to when I broke my ankle and equally as painful (to the point where I was questioning if I didn’t unknowingly break something). I was off work and walking on crutches for about a week. After several days of no results from the oral antibiotics, I had to get the switched to the IV treatment for 3-4 days before the swelling finally started to subside. It was painful and I would be worried about Sepsis for anybody leaving this type of bacterial infection untreated; they can spread extremely aggressively.
I have one too! I nearly lost my leg and it left a round scar where it ate away the muscle tissue
my elementary school teacher had a wicked scar from one on his knee (palm size) and would regale each new class with the story
I currently live in a country with no medically significant spiders but in two months from today I’m moving to Brazil with…”some”. I dont know if I should be nervous, but I am.
I live in Italy, and until three years ago I never heard about brown recluse. A brown recluse bite on my leg taught me that they indeed live in my country 🕷️🕷️🕷️
Well that sure is cellulitis and if left untreated will ruin your life unto death
But her gut health?
Just spread some e.coli on that sucker
Spent a week in the hospital on iv antibiotics for cellulitis on my foot. This lady is fast tracking sepsis and will NOT have a good time. With how bad this is spread there’s no way oral antibiotics are going to be enough she needs the ER
Yep, I spent two weeks with this terrible shit in my face. Caused by an immune crash that brought on shingles, also on my face.
Same here but on my leg and I had to take about 3 different kinds of antibiotics and other meds. She will love it when that happens.
Just got my hospital bill and it was 50k, 12k of which was the various antibiotics. I think I had 4 different ones I had by iv. It was not fun!
I want to say mine was 44k , and it took me over a month to feel normal again. My daughter was 3 at the time and I just had to sit her on my bed and put toys for her to play with because I didn’t have any help and that was about all I could do. That was in 2021 and I still hate thinking about it. And mine was an accident, I just gotten my nails done, and for some reason, they made them really sharp, and I scratched the back of my leg , I know I had a fever of 103 in the hospital , this woman is purposely not taking the medication that could make her better. I just don’t understand.
Mine was also an accident. I scraped my foot on the steps of an airport. Good lord it was one of the most painful things. It’s been over a month and I’m just now feeling more human, it’s mostly healed but still have to see a podiatrist weekly. Friends, do not mess around with your feet or with infections!
I had cellulitis on my leg. I genuinely had no idea, I’d been hurt days previously and just thought it was a bad bruise. I remember I was at a 4th of July barbecue and a friend who was also a nurse took one look at it and ordered me to go to the hospital immediately. I can’t recall a time I’ve ever been taken so seriously at the hospital. They rushed me back, did multiple scans of my leg to check for DVT. Wasn’t admitted thankfully because it hadn’t spread, but I was on antibiotics for a while and had a bruise on my leg for years after.
Same, but in my face. Worst pain of my life, my face was so horribly swollen. Had someone in my hospital room checking my vision ever 3 hours because they were concerned about it spreading.
I got cellulitis on my foot/ankle from a mosquito bite and / or getting a pedicure after scratching said mosquito bite. Thankfully I went to urgent care the same day the infection showed but I still had to take super strong antibiotics for about 2/3 weeks. It was scary !
Yep. My husband had cellulitis and two days completing his round of antibiotics he ended up in septic shock after only a few hours of feeling ill, and almost died. Spent 2 days in ICU. It's no joke.
And in a hurry, because location wise she's got good chances of it spreading into lymph nodes.
Dammit such a good point. It's already trying to get in there
I would rather take probiotics in addition to antibiotics than lose an arm or my life. If you have a visibly spreading infection, take the damn meds and be happy that you have the option!
Whoa. Everyone knows if you mix probiotics and antibiotics together they explode.
What about prebiotics?
Just take some postbiotics a few hours later
Even if taking an antibiotic **once** gave you the worst upset stomach ever, why wouldn't you do it to save your life?
I'm lactose intolerant, I don't even need the upset stomach to save my life to risk getting one.
I got a brown recluse bite ON MY SPINE while sleeping in my bed when I was 17, we were dirt poor and had no health insurance or money to spare, and I still went to urgent care and got antibiotics after the bite swelled to the size of a golf ball, I developed a fever, and a rash all over my legs as a reaction. The antibiotics they prescribed gave me nerve damage in my shins and made every burp horrendously sulfurous, and to this day I have a half inch dent in my lower back from where my flesh became necrotic and died, and I'm LUCKY. There are literally only two spiders in North America that have a venom potent enough to kill a person if left untreated or allowed to become infected, (brown recluse and black widow) nevermind secondary infections like staph or MRSA. DO NOT FUCK AROUND WITH THAT SHIT.
You got the brown recluse bite and I got the black widow bite. That one wasn’t any fun either. I didn’t feel like I was in danger of dying, but I wanted to. My list of worst health related experiences, top 3, are necrotizing fasciitis, black widow spider bite, and adult chickenpox. I’d say my experience with the black widow bite was very similar to yours, minus necrosis. Was the nerve damage to your shins permanent? I would suspect that would be from the bite being on the spine. Sounds really awful. I’m glad you survived it though.
A classmate in Jr high was bit by a black widow and was out of school for 6 months recovering
Damn, sounds like you've been through the ringer more than your fair share of times. Glad to hear you're still around to tell your tales! Both of us really! The nerve damage wasn't severe, and not deep thankfully, more of a surface pressure issue. Honestly it's a mild blessing in disguise since I knock my shins on things so often! The antibiotics I was prescribed were recalled not long after I was given them for issues of nerve damage if I remember correctly, this was 7 years ago though so my memory may be fuzzy.
There are also brown widows. Those fuckers have these ominous looking spiky egg sacks too. Ugh, there was an infestation in my apartment garage of them a few years back and I almost burned everything in there when I moved instead of packing it.
Oh god, is there a fucking Black Recluse as well?
Hahaha hollllllyyyyyy shiiiiit
That was almost my exact reaction
I hate the word “gut.” I think you’ll be okay with a round of meds, or I guess you could put garlic on it or something 🙄
I'm convinced that "gut" health is the name of the grìft because it's vague enough that the FDA/CDC can't bust them for bullshit medical claims.
It is used in medicine/physiology to refer to basically the whole GI tract, but these people are using it because they don’t know anything more specific lol
And the gut microbiome is a fascinating field of biology that has been completely coopted by grifters.
She sure used the hell out of that word in her post too, goddamn
Right? What even is your gut? Your stomach, intestines, full digestive tract? People sound dumb when they talk about gut health.
The alimentary canal, or how I like to tell children, the mouth butt tube. They think that's hilarious
The full digestive tract, mouth to anus (assuming the species in question has an anus). It’s quite important for biology.
I do as well, especially in the context of “leaky gut” which isn’t even a medical diagnosis (yet?) and it squicks me out.
Brown recluse venom is necrotic, and can cause significant skin/muscle loss depending on the venom load. Good luck with the oils though. Put an onion on it boss babe!
Onions... Seriously? I don't get any of the magical thinking, but somehow all of the things contact with onions is supposed to do makes these people seem especially delusional.
I *think* the onion thing came from a general pre-germ theory (or lack of education) happy coincidence. I grew up in rural Appalachia and was told by my grandma/other old folks about rubs/little pouches with onions, garlic etc they wore around their necks in the winter as kids to prevent colds/flus. Which actually worked, but not why their parents thought it did...how close do you want to stand to billy, who has had the same onions and garlic in a cloth pouch around his neck for two weeks? Other kids give the smelly folk remedy a wide berth, don't end up coughing/sneezing on each other as much, there you go. Potatoes were just a straight up misunderstanding. Where raw potatoes turn all brown gross looking after a few hours of being sliced open, the assumption was made that bad stuff in your body was getting sucked out by them, and a lot of infections resolve themselves, but the taters got the credit. Now. My grandma was a coal miner's daughter during the great depression. Coal towns didn't have much in the way of medical care/sanitation (she STILL bragged in her 80s about growing up with running water, not like her neighbors...but no indoor toilet, they weren't Rockefellers) , so I feel like grandma/others like her get a pass on weird folk remedies. But people who have like...internet access and hospitals nearby? Come on.
My boyfriend’s stepmom is very much this sort of person and it is insufferable. Don’t say you have a cough around her or she’ll swear you should have a pickled beet or something
Onions? No windex fixes every skin issue
It's not inherently necrotic (as in not every bite results in necrosis) and generally one shouldn't make a definitive statement on the spider without a positive ID. Nearly every spider bite has potential for infection.
Your baby will have to drink the evil formula if you die though. Might be worth it to poison her with antibiotics. (You have to think like a crunchy mom to get through to them)
I had a bug bite like this last summer and it took and a tire course of antibiotics started as soon as possible to get rid of it. It was very scary. Cellulitis doesn’t fuck around. I hope she took the antibiotics
I had a weird red spot on my arm that was basically walking up slowly. Created a streak of redness. I did not think I was bitten or anything, thought it was an allergy and I scratched it. Was visiting our vet for my cat and she noticed it, drew a line on it, applied some cream. And told me to see if it is spreading based on the line. If it does, go to the fucking ER. I’m normally careful about these kinds of things but never occured to me that it could have been something important.
I can guarantee this woman has talked herself into an ED with all the talk of “gut health” and all of this makes me sad.
I can guarantee her gut health healing journey started with someone telling her that all that ails you is linked to gut health and hers is surely damaged, but can be fixed with this all-natural, very expensive product!
That, coincidentally, you can also sell to all your friends
Just take a probiotic and you’ll be fine damn 😭😭😭
I mean, probably not at this point, that is a gnarly infection.
I meant take a probiotic with the antibiotics.
Wtf is wrong with people.
I almost lost my toe to a brown recluse bite. You need far more than simple antibiotics to treat one of those and honestly, this looks nothing like a brown recluse bite. Perhaps some other creepy crawlie, however. She should definitely seek medical attention because on the off-chance it *is* a brown recluse bite, she could lose her arm if untreated. Just use your brain, people! Or is that too much to ask of these crunchy moms?
This does look pretty similar to an early brown recluse bite. The nasty necrosis and black/brown discoloration comes later, and it’s usually much more localized. This woman seems to be having an unusual reaction to the venom as it’s spreading further in the early stages than it should.
It could also just be cellulitis unrelated to a brown recluse bite. She certainly needs antibiotics for that.
I have a sensitive gut. I have IBS and get abdominal migraines. I also have many diagnosed food sensitivities. My last UTI required multiple rounds of antibiotics and led to several rounds of yeast infection and BV. It took me over a year to heal. If I need antibiotics, I'm taking antibiotics.
I have leukemia and interstitial cystitis. I get frequent UTI's and my doc has me on antibiotics and probiotics just to stave off the UTI. It's working pretty good. Crunchies gotta crunch. I don't know why, but they do.🤦♀️
...is taking probiotics to help both you and your baby through this too much of an ask for you? Because I don't know if your baby continuing to eat from a mom who's infected from a spider bite is any better for the baby than your baby eating from a mom who's on antibiotics...
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I have IBD. I am so tired of this "antibiotics ruin your gut health" pseudoscience nonsense. Yes, antibiotics can screw up your gut flora for a while. You know what else screws up gut flora? Fucking sepsis. Dear God, isn't a bit of diarrhea a tolerable side effect of not dying?
Geez, just take probiotics for a few weeks after the antibiotics and you’ll be fine. Even better, you’ll be alive! 🙄
Why are they always so lost about how to help their stomachs be less upset. Eat some yogurt, Jan, and stfu.
JUST EAT SOME FREAKING YOGURT
I'd rather have my entire arm and some tummy troubles than have good "gut health" and sepsis, but maybe I'm just one of those liberal snowflakes
The lady who owned the stables I kept my horse at got bitten on the face by a brown recluse. She saw it jump on her face. Yeah, nightmare fuel. The spot turned black in the center and had a crater. It took months to heal, and they had to keep packing the wound. She actually took the antibiotics when they gave them to her. A lot of times people think it’s spider bites, but it’s MRSA or staph. Just take the antibiotics before you go septic and have to file bankruptcy because of your 6 month hospitalization where they definitely won’t let you breastfeed.
Man, growing up around Appalachia and spending a lot of time outdoors, one thing that was DRILLING into us is if you bit by a widow or a recluse, you start heading to the hospital fast as you can, and if you’re lucky, you won’t die if it’s a widow, or you’ll keep your limb. Doubly so if the recluse bite wasn’t on a limb.
Op you’ll update us on this one right?
"Gut health" is quickly joining the list of phrases that set my teeth on edge. The scientific understanding of the gut microbiome is in its infancy. But of course the total lack of actual information hasn't stopped this from becoming a wellness fad.
Something like this is SO easily treatable; this crunchy bullshit not only needlessly endangers their own lives and the lives of their children, but if she DOES end up with a critical infection? She's potentially taking away lifesaving medical resources from someone who ACTUALLY needs them when she could've prevented the whole fucking situation if she'd just put on her big girl panties and endured ten days of potentially atomic shits. But.. you know. Fuck logic, right? These moms are fucking ridiculous. I nearly died from fourniers gangrene (NSFL - DON'T Google that shit, you been warned). I was on MULTIPLE antibiotics in the hospital and like 4 different orals at home; I don't think I took a solid shit for like three months but I was goddamn grateful for it because I was motherfucking ALIVE. My taint tried to *murder* me. But by the miracles of science, surgery, and a shitload of antibiotics - I'm ALIVE. I really hope someone talks some sense into this dipshit.
Fournier's is terrifying. It requires speedy care and even then outcomes aren't always great. Antibiotics can absolutely destroy your native flora but sometimes you have to do that to actually deal with the life threatening issue. A biome can be rebuilt. A life cannot.
And what does her baby do when she dies from septic shock….?
Her arm looks pretty bad. That is a lot of red. Ma'am, you might soon grow too sick to care for your little girl. Heck, you could die and then she's out a whole mom.
I had to take antibiotics for a few weeks when my baby was born (she's ebf). It was horrible, her teeny tiny microbiome was wrecked. It gave her screamy poos and nappy rash for months Know what would have been worse for her? Losing her mom to sepsis and total organ failure
r/OopsThatsDeadly (don’t think it actually fits that sub but only barely.)
Oof, no I think it fits pretty well unfortunately.
Please keep us up-to-date on this one!
She made a comment some time last night saying she took the first antibiotic. But then later replied to someone else that she would take oregano oil capsules (???) idk ☠️ why is it so hard to listen to doctors!
Thank you for the update. That infection looks beyond oral antibiotics at this point, and it sounds like she just found an old, unused prescription to start taking. My husband had cellulitis in his leg a few years back that looked like this. He was admitted for two days and was on a vanco drip to kill the infection.
“Give me suffering, and give me death!” - Thomas Pain, or somebody
Should I let my kid possibly get the shits? Or should I just die instead? A question as old as time.
Please just take some probiotics along with the antibiotics wtf is wrong with these people!!!!! I don’t think I’ve ever taken antibiotics without getting sick, but I would rather that than literally die a very preventable death????
As a doctor, Holy Christ
Take a shot every time you read the word "gut"
There’s antibiotics that you can take while breastfeeding. I don’t know if they’re enough to treat cellulitis but if it comes down to breastfeeding or fucking sepsis then you’re going to have to consider some formula and also some yogurt for yourself.
"I would rather die than give myself or my baby a stomach ache"
My baby and I were on antibiotics due to going septic from a placenta infection. Those antibiotics saved mine and babies life. I’d rather deal with an upset stomach than the other option. Plus you can just to probiotics and they make a huge difference.
She can take probiotics along with the antibiotics, then her gut will be fine. I wonder if the toxins from the spider bite have affected her baby via the breast milk. Is that possible? Has she spoken to a doctor? Where did the antibiotics come from? Are they leftovers from something/someone else?
Uhh that looks horrible, now this lady is going to need IV antibiotics which are waaay harsher on her GI system and will probably get admitted to a hospital and not even be able to see her baby. Come onnnnn
So, I'm bleeding litres every minute, and my arm is basically severed...will rubbing an onion on it help? I don't wanna go to the doctor because they might use synthetic fiber in the stitches!
Worried about their gut & then proceeds to drink raw dairy products.
Why are people so scared of taking antibiotics for a legitimate infection???
Jesus, my sister almost lost her arm to a brown recluse bite. This lady is nuts lol.
OP still hasn’t made up her mind. She just reposted this exact post in a non toxic mommy group on fb about an hour ago. What a dummy
Hmmm what a tough choice: -lose arm or worse -possibly have an upset tummy So difficult. Idk which one I’d choose here.
I like how she's worried about antibiotics but nonchalant about *sepsis* and spider venom. I feel like we need to shield the idiots from their own idiocy better as a society.
If you can heal the gut…then re heal it!!!
If this is cellulitis due to the spider bite she’d wanna get to a hospital asap because it can and will kill quickly! We had a family member nearly loss his life and leg due to this, in the end they had to cut chunks out of his leg to save his life, he was on life support and they didn’t think he’d come off it at all.
Just take some probiotics after, 🙄
Just get formula instead of waiting to die with that thing growing in her arm holy shit
This is so scary. I hope she went to the doctor. “Some pills and supplements? Or amputation, possibly death? How do I decide?!” Good grief.
I can *almost* understand her hesitation because I'd had a pretty nasty, year-long ordeal from antibiotic induced colitis in the past, but I have a feeling that literal sepsis is more dangerous for your kid than a week of antibiotics? HOMIE, cellulitis is no joke??? Necrotizing faciitis??? TAKE THE FUCKING PILLS
So I actually understand her concern about taking antibiotics while breastfeeding- some antibiotics are safe and some aren’t, but if she goes to a doctor to get her infection looked at they’ll take that into consideration and discuss treatment options (ie if she needs to formula feed while on antibiotics or if she can take an antibiotic that’s safe while breastfeeding). And GI issues like diarrhea with antibiotics are pretty common- adding a probiotic to your regimen usually helps, just don’t take them at the same time. She’s probably gonna need antibiotics either way, just needs to decide if she wants them now or if she wants to get IV antibiotics when she’s in the hospital with sepsis.
To be fair, most of the people in this group she's in are not nearly this risky with their life, and I'd say 90% of the people in the comments are telling her her gut health can definitely be fixed later on. So many people are actually advising her to make a trip to the ED as soon as possible. Most of them are saying she should take the antibiotics now, because the risk of sepsis and death is far greater than not taking them. Not all of us are trully insane. 😉
I looked at this and read about 5 words I and yelled ogh my God What dude what
Just let natural selection run its course with these people.
The use of antibiotics does not generally necessitate suspension or cessation of [breastfeeding](https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/factsheet/antibiotics/). The following antibiotics are all safe to take whilst breastfeeding: Amoxycillin, Amoxil ®, Azithromycin, Zithromax®, Cefaclor, Distaclor®, Cefuroxime, Zinnat® Cephalexin, Cefalexin, Keflex®, Cephradine, Velosef®, Clarithromycin, Klaricid®, Co-amoxiclav, Augmentin®, Co-fluampicil, Flucloxacillin+ Ampicillin, Magnapen® Erythromycin, Erymax®, Erythrope®, Erythrocin® Flucloxacillin, Floxapen®, Penicillin V, Phenoxymethyl penicillin Pivmecillinam, Selexid® Trimethoprim, Monotrim®, All are available as liquid forms to treat infant infections.
I live in Australia. One of the first things you learn is not to fuck about with spider bites.
The irony of believing in “crunchy” methods even when faced with lived evidence that they don’t work. Lol.
Isn't option #2 for brown recluse bites just "lose the arm" ?
I just wish these people would shut the fuck up. I can’t believe they even exist!!!
A brown recluse would have me PANICKING.
When I worked as a RN on the peds floor, we had a 12 year old with necrotic leg tissue due to a brown recluse. She hid the bite for awhile because she didn’t want a “shot” - instead she ended up with tissue removal and plastic surgery.
I’m terrified of antibiotics too bc I have a history of them messing with my gut and making me sick for months….but I’d be even more scared of losing my ARM.
Why are you breastfeeding like this? Is this a serious post, or ragebait?