Dangerous Infections

This 12 year old girl came into the clinic on a recent Friday. Her mother stated that she began to develop an abscess around her right eye two weeks prior. As the picture shows, her right eye was completely swollen shut. Her lymph nodes below her right jaw were enlarged as was the the lymph node in front of her right ear.

Her mother reported that she had a fever. The good news was that when I pried her eyelids open, her right eye moved freely in the socket which meant that she had periorbital cellulits rather than orbital cellulits which would be much more dangerous. Orbital cellulitis can spread to the brain very quickly.

I gave her a shot of ceftriaxone and put her on oral antibiotics and she returned on Monday. The picture below shows the swelling is much improved around her right eye.

It cost 75 cents to get in the clinic each day. That covered everything. This young lady was very fortunate that her mother was able to find the money. Infections like this can become very deadly when they are allowed to progress to this degree.

Poverty is the big killer in Haiti, but this time poverty lost.