UGH! infected from the carpet??

[draboo]

my partner at work told me this story today. he is a maintainance guy for some apartments near his home. he was reparing some carpeting this past summer. went home and felt fine. 2 days later his knee hurt like hell. next morning he had a red line running from his knee half way up his thigh. went to walk in clinic,they sent him to hospital,and the doctor admitted him for two days to pump antibiotics or something in him to kill the infection. doc said good thing he didnt wait another day,couldve been much worse.

anyone else heard of such a thing?? JD said his knee was fine before he did the carpeting. (JD, as in my work partner)

weird,tho.

I've heard of that happening with spraying crops and wearing shorts. Maybe he just rubbed some nasty little bugs through the skin when he was laying carpet. Microscopic lacerations can't be felt, but they're big enough for bacteria to find a way into and all that. Who knows?

One of my friends had an infection from his foot all the way up to his knee, all the way around his leg from crop spraying with shorts on. Couldn't walk for a week because of the pain.

-Whir

[osprey4]

I haven't heard of such a thing but with the ecosystem that can be found in a carpet, I'm not surprised at all. I think there are many undescribed life forms, some likely alien, in our family room carpet.

[brandon184]

I'm not a carpet fan... It is soo unbelievably disgusting, gross, dirty and dusty.

~ Brandon

Carpet's not so bad - better than a dirt floor, anyway!

There are many microbes in carpet, but this may not have been the source of his infection. If he had a joint infection versus a minor skin wound infection, then his infection most likely came from within his own bloodstream, and was triggered by the constant knocking of his knees, so-to-speak

We all have bacteria that get into our bloodstream from time to time. The usually don't get to do any harm, and are defeated by the blood's defense systems. But occasionally if they get in in overwhelming numbers, or if our defense system is not working right, or if the get to hide in a nice hiding place (like inside a joint, for instance) then they can cause a nasty infection.

So, depending on the kind of infection he had, I would not be too quick to blame the carpet. You eat more bugs everyday on your food than you would find in most carpets, anyway. They are not good habitats for the kind of bugs which are likely to cause us infections.

Cheers
Mick the bug man

[Theophylact]

There are all kinds of bugs on a carpet. Yes, you can get really serious -- even fatal -- streptococcal infections this way. Necrotizing fasciitis (the infamous "flesh-eating bacteria") is a possible result. See Atul Gawande's terrific (and terrifying) book, Complications, for an up-front-and-personal look at two cases, not necessarily from carpets. (The excerpt shown just gives you a taste for the book; it's not about necrotizing fasciitis.)