Cellulitis

        There are two things that are said about cellulitis: first, all women abhor it and, second, everyone tries to fight it by any means necessary. Both are false. Why? Simply because people tend to mistake two very different conditions: cellulitis and cellulites. What women hate from the bottom of their hearts is cellulites. Cellulitis is, just like any other condition that ends with the suffix "-itis", an inflammatory problem. In this case, the textbook definition of cellulitis goes a little like this: cellulitis is one of the most common dermatological problems in the world. Both men and women suffer from it equally, but it prefers people with more fat under their skin that those with less extra - weight to carry around. Why? Basically, because cellulitis is a bacterial of the skin and the tissues that lay directly beneath the skin. Picture that a person would have muscles directly under the skin. This might mean that the bacterium that is considered to be the cellulitis cause should attack the muscles. This is not possible: the muscles are too hard and compact for the bacterium to penetrate and the infection remains superficial. In this case, the patient develops impetigo and not cellulitis.

       If the affected person has a layer of fat beneath their skin, however superficial it might be, the bacterium can grow and develop inside that layer. This is cellulitis: the existence of bacteria on the lower layers of the epidermis and not at the surface of the skin. Of course, the fact that there is a problem with the lower layers of the epidermis means that the outer layers will present a different than normal image to the viewer: the affected area begins to redden and its temperature rises fast. Soon, a more - or - less round portion of skin hardens and feels much hotter then the rest of the patients' epidermis. Sometimes, these hardened areas are as small as a pinpoint, but in severe cases, they can be as large as the bottom of a mug or even or a normal plate. Imagine that all that part of the skin holds bags of infected tissue that can invade the bloodstream at a moments' notice. If the patient sees all these cellulitis symptoms, he or she must report to a physician as soon as possible to try and avoid all sorts of unwanted complications. While cellulitis can be relatively harmless if it is developed on the arms, legs or back, the type of cellulitis that appears on the face or on the breasts can cause serious problems, ranging from a terrible infection of the eyes to a modification of the breast tissue. Unfortunately, there is little to be done to save an eye once the infection has settled in and an infection of the breast tissue could lead to the early stages of breast cancer.

Cellulitis pictures

        ...see more Cellulitis pictures: Cellulitis pictures

        In extreme cases, these cellulitis symptoms can spread beyond the affected area of the skin and encompass the entire body. Thus, there have been patients that have reported high fevers, with chills and sweats, and swollen lymph nodes next to the problematic part of the patients' skin. Basically, everything surrounding the cellulitis becomes infected.

       After all this talk of what cellulitis looks like and what are its symptoms, one might wonder what causes cellulitis. Well, the cellulitis cause is most certainly bacterial. What remains a bit of a mystery is what bacterium actually causes the most dangerous form of cellulitis. For example, the most common cellulitis type has as a pathogen agent a bacterium called Staphylococcus aureus. The more medically - inclined patients might recognize it as the bacterium that can cause pretty much everything: from meningitis to pneumonia, this bacterium can do it all. Technically, in the case of cellulitis, it is not as dangerous as when it enters the bloodstream, but it has been known to pass through to the circulatory system from the lower layers of the dermis. And since Staphylococcus aureus never comes alone, the second bacterium that must be taken into consideration as a cellulitis cause is Streptococcus. Now, where Staphylococcus is a giant, Streptococcus is a little mouse. Basically, scientists have established that the second type of bacterium is to blame for the redness of the skin in cellulitis, while the first one causes all the other cellulitis symptoms.

       There are other types of bacteria that can cause cellulitis, like Hemophilus influenzae, Pneumococcus and Clostridium, but none of them are capable of the same physical devastation as Staphylococcus.

       One thing that separates cellulitis from any other skin condition out there is that cellulitis is not contagious. This might sound a bit odd, but think about it for a second. Why would cellulitis be contagious? After all, there are no open wounds, no puss suppurating from anywhere and no matter how violent the contact between two people might be, there is little chance of actually breaking the deep layers of the skin. Essentially, cellulitis is not contagious because another person cannot reach the bacterium.

       Nowadays, physicians use cellulitis pictures to complete the diagnosis procedure. After the symptoms have been analyzed and the bacterial cultures grown and studied, all that is left is to see if the physical manifestations of the disease match the ones considered standard. From the size of the swollen area and the degree of redness, a skilled physician can determine whether the cellulitis is in its beginning phases or it is advanced. Also, dermatologists need to be able to tell if the disease is associated with other illnesses or not. In the end, they should be capable of prescribing the patient a scheme of treatment. Usually, after a couple of weeks of treatment with antibiotics, the infection is gone and the patient can resume his or her life undisturbed.