{"id":16797,"date":"2021-05-31T15:31:03","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T02:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/?p=16797"},"modified":"2021-05-31T15:31:03","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T02:31:03","slug":"cll-advocates-newsletter-issue-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/?p=16797","title":{"rendered":"CLL Advocates Newsletter Issue 11"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”3″ bottom_padding=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ shift_y_down=”0″ z_index=”0″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ width=”1\/1″][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h1″ text_size=”h1″]CLL Advocates Newsletter Issue 11<\/b>[\/vc_custom_heading][vc_column_text]Dear Friends of CLLANZ<\/p>\n

Skin infection (cellulitis) and CLL – a cautionary tale<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cellulitis is an infection of the skin, most commonly of the legs. It is usually due to bacteria. It commonly arises when the integrity of the skin is breached by a penetrating injury, often in the context of a pre-existing condition, such as diabetes, and conditions where immunity is impaired, such as CLL.<\/p>\n

Cellulitis is the second most common primary site causing severe infection in patients with CLL (lower respiratory tract infections are the most common). It is often associated with sepsis\/septicemia; when this happens, mortality is about 25% one month on from the episode of cellulitis. So awareness of what cellulitis is, and prompt antibiotic treatment thereof can save lives.<\/p>\n

Professionally and theoretically, I have always been concerned about the risks of cellulitis, but in practice I\u2019ve always led a physically active lifestyle, acquiring numerous skin injuries in the process. So it\u2019s perhaps surprising that I hadn\u2019t ever got cellulitis.<\/p>\n

That all changed recently, when I had a penetrating injury of my left leg by a stick.\u00a0Twelve hours later, I awoke in the night feeling very unwell, with a red, swollen, and painful leg. I\u00a0was admitted to hospital for five days of intravenous antibiotics (blood cultures were positive for E. coli), with a good response, and was sent home on oral antibiotics.<\/p>\n

About a week later, the infection recurred, despite oral antibiotics, and I again felt very unwell. I was readmitted to hospital, the first few days of this period being in ICU\/HDU because of my level of unwellness. Blood cultures were again positive for E. coli. This time, I was an inpatient for a total of fifteen days; IV antibiotics for all that time, then a further week of IV antibiotics as an outpatient, after discharge.\u00a0This seems to have done the trick, and I am currently back to where I was pre-leg injury, health-wise.<\/p>\n

So, for those with CLL, please look after your skin, particularly on your legs. Wear gumboots and other protective clothing when in the outdoors, seek prompt medical advice\/treatment for any skin injuries, and keep a careful eye on such injuries. Sepsis can be serious\/fatal quite quickly.<\/p>\n

I for one have certainly adopted a change in approach to looking after my skin as a consequence of this episode.<\/p>\n

Best wishes<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Neil Graham[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skin infection (cellulitis) and CLL – a cautionary tale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-newsletter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/CLLANZ-Favicon.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16798,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16797\/revisions\/16798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}