Cellulitis :: Lymphoedema For Last 15 Years

I am 44 years old and have had Lymphoedema for the past 15 years. A year ago I started shaking was very sick, had a blinding headache and within 3 hours of shaking my leg with Lymphoedema had started to go bright red. I went to an emergency doctor (very painful to walk) where he said i looked terrible and gave me some antibiotics. The antibiotics had no effect, by this time the redness had spread to my good leg and I was in agony. I went my own GP who diagnosed cellulitis and gave me stronger antibiotics which again had no effect. After a forth lot of even stronger antibiotics things started to slowly improve but by this time I was having dizzy spells, hot flushes and all the skin around my feet and ankles shed off in big lumps. The redness lasted for weeks. The experience was quite frightening and also gave me Lymphoedema in what was my good leg although not as severe.

I have now just returned from holiday in Spain, on my first morning at home, I started shaking and knew straight away what was going to follow. Sure enough within half an hour I was vomiting and my leg started to go red, this time on my so called good leg. I wasted no time and called doctor for a home visit, again it was very painful to walk. He came within the hour and I told him what antibiotics to give me after doing some research. People with Lymphoedema that get cellulitis need a high dose of something like 500mg Amoxicillin for a minimum of 2 weeks. Four days later the redness has still spread to a large area of my leg but has been contained to just the one leg which is now not looking quite as inflamed.

I feel the GP's need educating about cellulitis especially on patients with existing Lymphoedema, they are not responding quickly enough and a lot of people are suffering more than they need to