Main reason I stopped diving or entering water is skin eating bacteria

[The Chairman]

Hey, sorry to ruin your insistence about no black and White Sea snakes in Florida but yes is had the flattened tail and was not on the surface swimming, it was mid water and was not a worm or an eel or a land snake.

You've got a pick, right?

 

[STB]

I think it started out about vibrio. Fishermen have lost limbs from hook punctures and shrimp jabs that got infected with vibrio. It's usually in brackish water but has occurred offshore

yes I think the brackish water is very high salinity even though it's a mixture of salt/fresh water.

I believe these are similar infections but contracted differently. they diffenity appear different

man #1 punctures skin w/ fishing hook then his hand gets swollen black & blue apparently a extremely rapid infection process.I've read about people sucking out the infection w/ there mouth like a snake bite.

man#2 a small break in the skin then enters water and his skin simple eaten off not limited to hands or feet but any body part even the face. I don't want any bacteria near my favorite body part.

I guess I've been lucky so far I've punctured my skin w/ fishing hooks/pin fish also shrimp can inflict damage to the skin, not sure how if #2 (reported to be 20 miles out to sea) was washing hands w/ saltwater after the poke but is very probable.

so has anyone here been attacked by the Florida flies?
I'll be adding to the iodine in the first aid kit.

 

[michael-fisch]

Me too. Give me some vitamin Sea, stat! I'm sitting here at home with a broken leg. Two plates held onto my tibia and fibia with fourteen screws, and I'm letting it heal just a little longer before I go get wet. If these were surface cuts, I wouldn't care, but they literally go all the way down to the bone, so I'm being patient. Put some fins on and work those muscles without worrying about hurting (over-stressing) the underlying structure.

Phobias, by nature, are impossible to reason away. The afflicted person has to make up their mind to defeat them or let themselves be controlled by unreasonable fears. I have a natural fear of heights, so whenever I can do something like do one of the high rides at a waterpark, look over the edge of tall buildings, or the like, I force myself to do it. I had a phobia of spiders, so I grab every banana spider I see and crush it. I'll use a hammer on a black widow, so I don't go crazy with this, but I find the direct approach of forcing myself to overcome any fear or phobia the best way. Hell, I used to be petrified of sharks. I forced myself into engaging them and I am no longer held by that phobia.

So I guess that you are enjoying something like this:

Remember when they told you to keep the load on the leg under 50lbs?
They did that because some of the longer screws will break . The broken screws still hold the bones in place, with a slight wobble, and healing now takes much longer.

Michael

 

[STB]

this is disgusting and cruel

 

[chillyinCanada]

this is disgusting and cruel

The Chairman broke his leg on a scuba trip in Fiji and during surgery to fix his leg, those are the various sorts of metal and screws that were indeed put into his leg.

What's disgusting and cruel about that?

Potentially, it is off topic for this thread.

 

[michael-fisch]

this is disgusting and cruel

You're right, and that stuff was in my right tibia and fibia for 16 months untill they finally operated it out. At least when they operated it out they didn't cause a 2nd bone infection.

Michael

 

[michael-fisch]

If you are wondering, this was the cure for a dive accident.
While wearing doubles I slipped while exiting over muddy ground and my left knee broke both bones on my right leg. Since I never do something halfway, I ended up with 2 spiral fractures and DCS I around the fracture sites.
Closed fractures, but I caught a bone infection during the surgery, that was discovered 4 weeks later, - a week of IV antibiotics followed by 6 weeks of expensive oral antibiotics, before my CRP values were almost normal.
Don't worry about skin eating bacteria, what you can get on a hospital operating table is at least as bad.

Michael

 

[The Chairman]

Don't worry about skin eating bacteria, what you can get on a hospital operating table is at least as bad.

Can anyone spell MRSA?

 

[michael-fisch]

Can anyone spell MRSA?

Hope you don't have it. It's called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and is not easy to cure since many common antibiotics no longer work properly on it.
Higher dosages, non preferred antibiotics, alternate treatment types, much longer treatment times, and no guarantee that the treatment will work. Current treatment often involves using Sulfa drugs.

Michael

 

[Navymarkv]

Main reason I stopped diving or entering water is skin eating bacteria.plus I have limited fresh water for showering that will be increased soon.


As a kid I thought the saltwater would accelerate the healing process of a cut in the skin.


Now as a middle aged adult (novis diver) I’m very leery of entering (or even washing hands ) the saltwater in fear of skin eating bacteria (especially in brackish water) I think it’s referred to as VIBRIO.



Besides the average normal cut in skin. The main cause of breakage of skin is the Florida state bird these flys attack anything that moves are taken chunks of skin while sucking my blood then to add to these bites is the scratching which creates even more breaks in skin.


These flies have ruined a few expeditions even 20 miles offshore, I’m thinking where did these devils come from.


I have ordered 2 bottles of Avon skin so soft hopefully these carnivorous flys will go eat something else, they usually don’t enter the cabin however I have felt like a prisoner on my own vessel.


My first aid kit is basically iodine and ducktape, is Clorox safe to disinfect cuts or should I stick to iodine or use both?

Florida’s tourism department doesn’t publish red tide or fly reports.I’m thinking they hus up about skin eating bacteria even more so, come to florida just don't go in the water.

it's actually illegal to throw a fish carcass w/in a certain distance from a boat launch however carcass's are always there. I'm convinced that the flys at the ramp follow me way offshore.

Thanks for any tips on keeping healthy.STB