The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Unca_Tim]

Here's a little note I got from Spidey today. Thought you should all know about it.

I am sending this to everyone I have in my address book so you may not even know I had this happen in February and am still in recovery.

They just did a Health Alert segment on Good Morning America about a flesh eating bacteria spreading across the US. This is important folks! They said 30% of the people who get it DIE. A little girl in NY died from it this week.

You know that is what I had and I nearly did die. The symptoms are fever, possible chills, pain that does not respond to pain killers, possible redness of the skin. Hello? Exactly my symptoms!

Please tell everyone you know about this and ask them to tell everyone they know. This is not a hoax or urban legend. This is what I had and am still recovering from. Please pass along the symptoms and urge everyone to seek emergency treatment immediately if they suffer these symptoms. The surgeon in the ER told me that if I had waited another day to come in I might not have lived - and I nearly didn't as it was. I waited 4 days before I went in, thinking I had a flu bug and possibly a skin infection. This is nothing to play around with or take your chances. This is real and life-threatening. Please pass this information along to everyone you know and feel free to use my name and email if anyone is skeptical. You know me - I'm real - and it happened to me!!! I'm still carrying around a wound vac and a hole in my body to prove it.

~Gerald

[Principessa]

Yikes!
I'm so sorry that you're having to deal with this Spidey! Scary stuff.
I'm a biology teacher and first heard about these flesh-eating bacterial infections (necrotizing fasciitis) while we were watching an educational video on bacteria in my classroom. Later I had my students make "Wanted" posters (picture, M.O., detailed description of infection, typical victims, etc) for bacterial and viral infections, and several students were interested in learning more about this seemingly unreal "urban legend". It definitely is as real as it comes, and scary as hell!
So sorry that you fell victim and SOOOOO glad that you caught it in time. My prayers are with you that you'll continue to be on the mend from this.

[doglover]

I heard the editor of Prevention Magazine on Howard Stern yesterday talking about this. She said it is spreading in alarming rates and the highest incidents are from locker room infections. She said the gym is the most likely place someone is contracting it. Now isn't that just a kicker. Go there to get healthy and come out w/ flesh eating bacteria. Blech. Her suggestion is to always wipe machines/weights before using them.
D