So, it’s worth noting that in tropical climates small cuts and mosquito bites do not heal. In fact, with outstanding hygiene and disinfecting, you’re lucky if you can keep a wound at the same level of infection as it is currently. My beautiful blisters from my sandals (we hike all day in flip flops, I’m getting quite agile in them) have been, and will hopefully be the same red, enflamed spots that they have been. The flip side of this is what happened to the guy staying at the bungalow next to me. He had a mosquito bite on hit ankle. Sounds harmless. It became infected, his ankle swelled to the size of a large melon, and he could barely walk. I gave him my prescription of Cipro and told him to seriously clean it out. I saw him two days later on the beach walking and he was really upbeat and said the swelling had gone down. The next day, I saw him at his bungalow taking pictures of his foot. It was worse than ever. The infection had spread up to his calf muscle and looked awful. He said he was going to the doctor in Ao Nang. At was the last time I saw him. The guy he was staying with told me when he went to the doctor in Ao Nang, the doctor told him it was serious enough to kill him or maybe have to amputate the leg below the knee. He had to take the boat to Phuket (this was the Tonsai inside joke about serious injuries. The nearest real hospital is two hours from Tonsai on Phuket). When he arrived in Phuket, they had to do surgery immediately on his ankle and give him a serious antibiotic drip to try to knock down the infection. He will be fine, but had kind of a shitty vacation if you ask me. “What did you do on your vacation?”, “Oh, almost lost my leg and had to experience some awesome third world surgery…” Not my idea of a good trip. Moral of the story, wash your cuts, even a mosquito bite can seriously wreck your day…
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