Having Swelling Around Eye And Spreading To Cheek. Diagnosed Cellulitis. Taking Oral Antibiotics. Suggest

Posted on Tue, 11 Jun 2013

Question: Since 1996 I have been getting a swelling around my left eye that spreads down my cheek into my neck. In 1996 I was diagnosed with cellulitus. This has happened pretty much every 6 months since 1996. I have it now. I went to the dr's on friday...he gave me oral antibiotics. the next day it was twice as bad. I went to the hospital and had iv antibiotics and they sent me home with oral antibiotics. It got worse.. I went back to the hospital was admitted and given iv antibiotics, which is the course that has worked in the past. I was sent home yesterday.. the dr told me I do not have an infection because I don't have a fever or elevated white blood count and discharged me. Well of course I woke up this morning and it is worse. Please tell me what to do! or more importantly what this could be.

Answered by Dr. Sushil Kumar Sompur (10 hours later)

Hi there ~

I understand your concerns and it seems like you have had a lot of surgeries. I hope you have had good recoveries. I also wonder if the swelling around your left eye is related to your surgeries since you have not mentioned the times these surgeries occurred. I also wonder if it is not an infection since it got worse. It might be worth using another antibiotic in combination with it since cellulitis can be hard to treat at times. I wonder if you need stronger antibiotics due to the high prevalence of drug resistance in your part of the world, as well as your past history of having used antibiotics extensively either for the cellulitis or for the prep surgical prophylaxis.

I hope this helps.
Take care and have a lovely day!

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar