Learn About Boils - Your Skin Boil Guide
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What is the treatment for a boil?
from:The best treatment of boils is try to prevent them. Try not to get tired and
run down and make sure you eat a healthy, balanced diet, drink plenty of water
(around two litres per day), don't drink too much alcohol and take some exercise.
If you have a long-term condition that affects your immune system, then it's
important to make even more effort to keep healthy.
General measures:
* Consult your doctor about your general health.
* If you are overweight, try to reduce it.
* Follow a balanced healthy diet with meat, plenty of fruit and vegetables.
* Wash your whole body once a day with soap and water, and your hands when appropriate.
* Don't share your flannel or towel with other family members.
* Maintain a clean handkerchief and don't pick your nose!
* Change your underclothes and night attire regularly.
* Avoid leisure activities which cause sweating and friction from clothing, as squash
and jogging.
* If you are iron deficient, a course of iron tablets may help reduce infection.
* 1000mg of vitamin C daily has also been advocated.
Home Treatment
Most simple boils can be treated at home. Ideally, the treatment should begin as
soon as a boil is noticed since early treatment may prevent later complications.
Small boils can be treated with moist heat (usually a warm, wet washcloth) applied
for 20 to 30 minutes, three or four times a day. This will decrease the pain
and help draw the pus to the surface. This will also help the boil drain on
its own.
When the boil starts draining, wash it with an antibacterial soap until all the pus
is gone. To prevent the infection from spreading. Apply a antibiotic ointment and a Band-Aid.
Note: Putting medication on the boil will not cure it because the medicine does not
penetrate into the infected skin, however a thin coat of antibiotic ointment
(Polysporin) and a Band-Aid over the boil will keep the germs from spreading.
Continue to wash the infected area 2-3 times a day and to use warm compresses until the wound heals.
Do not pop the boil with a needle and ever squeeze a boil, you may spread the infection by pushing the pus downward. This usually results in making the infection worse.
If the boil does not start to heal within a few days, then make an appointment to
see your doctor.
Medical Treatment
If there are concerns about the seriousness of the infection, additional blood tests
will be performed. The doctor may prescribe antibiotics such as erythromycin or flucloxacillin for seven to fourteen days to take if the infection is severe. Sometimes, special antibiotics may be prescribed on the recommendation of a specialist, including fucidin, clindamycin, rifampicin and cephalosporins.
Antibiotics are often used to eliminate the accompanying bacterial infection.
Especially if there is an infection of the surrounding skin, the doctor often
prescribes antibiotics. However, antibiotics are not needed in every situation. In
fact, antibiotics have difficult penetrating the outer wall of an abscess well and
often will not cure an abscess without additional surgical drainage.
Surgical treatment
Boils and carbuncles that are very large, or that are not draining, may be opened
with a sterile needle or surgical knife to allow the pus to drain. The doctor will
usually give the patient a local anesthetic if a knife is used; surgical treatment
of boils is painful and usually leaves noticeable scars.
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