A New Allergy

A few weeks ago, I fell while carrying out my mission to get more studying done. I blogged about that totally embarrassing incident in my post When Will I Study Now?. I scraped my hands a bit and so a couple of days after that happened I finally decided I better go to the doctor. They looked at my abrasions and said two of them were deep, but did not require stitches. They recommended that I put Bacitracin on them and keep them bandaged when I was not at home.

For 6 weeks, I have been been faithfully applying Bacitracin and bandages on both of my hands. But last week, it dawned on me that the abrasions were not healing. In fact, they were getting more and more red and they were starting to hurt and itch. I stuck it out for a few more days and finally gave in and went to the Student Health Center yesterday. The doctor took one look and said "this is an allergic reaction to the Bacitracin". Soon all of the nurses and doctors in that part of the Center were in that little exam room looking at my hands. I felt like an experimental subject with them all gawking at me. They all took their look and then left the room. The nurse came in and told me that for 3 decades they have been recommending that students use Bacitracin for their scrapes, cuts, and abrasions. Prior to 3 decades ago, they recommended Polysporin, but a lot of students developed allergic reactions to the Polysporin so they started recommending Bacitracin. In the last few weeks, a good number of students have been going into the Student Health Center with allergic reactions to Bacitracin. Lucky me...I can now include myself in that growing number. So that's why everyone wanted to have a look at my hands.

I am now applying something else that they gave me to keep the abrasions from drying out and already they are not as red as they were yesterday.

So, now I'm wondering what has changed to cause the Bactracin allergy outbreak among students on our campus. Is it a regional thing? I used a generic from a local store, but this store has a presence throughout most of the southeastern U.S. I'm just curious and I suppose I can find out more when I go back for a check-up next week. This is all just a little something to occupy my brain while I avoid studying.

Life is great when you can keep the bandages off.