Swelling from bug bite

[Erin591]

Hello Everyone,

I am a new member of the forum, and the daughter of a man recently diagnosed with MDS . For the last few years my Father, who is relatively young at 54, has been experiencing severe fatigue, fever, chills, nose bleeds and mood swings that his doctors attributed to rheumatoid arthritis. After a month of fever and weight loss they finally diagnosed him with MDS (this was the second fever run).

Over the last few years he has been very sensitive to infections. Today he was hospitalized because his arm was swelling down to his fingers. He had just received a transfusion yesterday, but he believes his swelling is associated with a bug bite.

Have any of you experienced any kind of swelling from bug bites or other 'natural' occurrences?

Thank you,
Erin

[Cheryl C]

Yes - over the years before I was diagnosed with MDS RAEB2 in 2011 almost every insect bite, burn or other injury that broke the skin would inflame and infect and I often needed antibiotics. A low white cell count and chronic neutropenia usually causes this.

What type of MDS does your dad have?

[Erin591]

Originally Posted by Cheryl C

Yes - over the years before I was diagnosed with MDS RAEB2 in 2011 almost every insect bite, burn or other injury that broke the skin would inflame and infect and I often needed antibiotics. A low white cell count and chronic neutropenia usually causes this.

What type of MDS does your dad have?

Hi Cheryl,
To be honest, I'm not quite sure what kind of MDS he has... I'll have to f/u with him. I know that his treatment is currently focusing on the symptoms of hemolytic anemia, and they have not done much to address the MDS itself.

Thankfully, since this original posting, his doctors/ surgeons were able to treat his inflammation (it was a hematoma) and pump him full of antibiotics. Unfortunately the wound did not heal properly because of the anemia and it took weeks to stop the bleeding. Today his wound is in a better place, and is slowly healing on it's own.

Thank you for your response, Cheryl. Wishing you all the best.

[Cheryl C]

I'm so pleased that healing is happening at last. It's good that your father knows he has MDS so he can be extremely careful not to injure himself in any way or to be exposed to insect bites. Since I was diagnosed 2 years ago I've actually had far less infections because I know how important it is to be careful.