This is really odd--I guess it proves that nothing is for free!

Last Thursday I went to get my teeth cleaned. At the dental office they always offer a hot paraffin treatment for your hands--you sit there wearing gloves that look like oven mitts while your teeth are being cleaned. I enjoyed it a lot, and my hands were really soft afterwards.

Then I woke up Thursday night because I'd been scratching my hands in my sleep! Managed to get back to sleep, but they still itched like crazy the next day on a couple of my fingers and on the heel of my right hand. Thought maybe it was a skin allergy to the paraffin or the hand lotion, so I took Benadryl, which always turns me into a drugged zombie, and I got some Benadryl cream to put on my hands. Still itched like crazy on Friday, and on Saturday actually seemed to be a little worse.

Woke up Sunday morning, and I KNEW this was not a skin allergy--called the doctor and was able to get in this afternoon. She called it cellulitis--it's an infection under the skin. She gave me an antibiotic, told me to try not to use my hands much for a few days (yeah, right!), and said the itching and pain would be better in 3-4 days. SERIOUSLY??? I'm about ready to scratch all the skin off my hands! The only thing that seems to help is getting busy with something so that I'm distracted enough to not think about it (that would be quilting, mostly!)

So I guess the lesson here is if you get a hot wax treatment for your hands, make absolutely sure than you don't have any little paper cuts to hang nails or kitty punctures on your hands, or you, too, could be driven insane by the horrible itching!

Oh my! I sure hope it gets better!!!

Ouch, I hope you get better really quick. So sorry about that

did she say it was because of the parafin treatment?or maybe the gloves you wore had been used before,or the wax/I would think you should let the dentist know and maybe they need to throw out the wax and sanitize the bowl again or something

Hope your hands get better soon, and you'll know better next time. You would think the dentists would think to warn people before doing the paraffin treatment.

Or maybe JUST STICK TO DENTISTRY :shock: :shock: :shock:

Oh my goodness. :shock:

Oh Kathy, that must be just awful. I've heard about the foot bath disasters when getting a pedicure. I won't ever do that again. I hope you're healed very soon and be careful not to get a secondary infection. You poor thing. Did you make your dentist aware of this?

OMG! I am so sorry for you!
I have contact dermatitis, and I get reactions to lots of stuff, so I really watch out for anything. Can't do perfumes, etc. Just being around some plants causes me to break out. Noxious weeds the dermatologist called them! Sunflowers are really bad for me, but I can love them at a distance! :?

Yes, I was wondering the same thing. Or did the parafin treatment just exacerbate what was already there? Wow. Hope it heals quicker than she said it would. Good luck on that!

Ouch!!! So sorry. Hope you feel better real soon. Take care. And here is a Hug untill then.

Harmony, you need to call your dentist and let him know, because it's likely you got the infection from the paraffin and it will need to be changed out and the whole system disinfected. Good luck!

Yikes! Get better soon!

I am so sorry that such a nice gesture from your dentist went so horribly wrong!!! I would let them know what the doctor told you...

I hate to itch! Get better soon!

I know what it is like to itch - when I had my shoulder surgery a couple of years ago my feet and ankles itched so bad and I could not scratch them with my hands because I was all bound up with things to keep the shoulder in one place. I used my feet to scratch with and I wore holes in my ankles, but the itching drove me crazy. I am pretty sure it was from the high dosage pain meds.

Hope you get relief soon! And the dentist definitely needs to know what happened. Is he some sort of spa dentist?

I had chicken pox the week before my 22nd birthday and while that event was quite a while ago, I still recall my doctor telling me not to scratch. HA! U GOTTA B KIDDING!

I agree with everyone that you tell the dentist. Who knows whose paws were dipping in the wax before you and what kind of crud was lurking. Get better real soon.

MadQuilter wrote something sooo funny:
I agree with everyone that you tell the dentist. Who knows whose paws were dipping in the wax before you and what kind of crud was lurking. Get better real soon. [/quote]

LMBO!!! ...whose paws were dipping in the wax, :roll: and what kind of crud :shock: was lurking....still LMBO!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Wow, that is terrible. How scary.

I have scars from cellulitis whickh developed after a macaw bite (jealous bird, but I love it's owner). Take care of yourself.

I meant to post on this earlier, but, I went to the web md to check it out and see about it. I pray you take good care of this, it sounds dangerous! My hubby has diabetes and it say's that they can develop it easer than other people. I showed the artcle to him, I am glad you posted this. It is good to know.

Get better soon and take good care not to get it again. Bless your heart!

Benadryl may be over-the-counter, but it can cause reactions to other meds as well as what it did to you, Harmony. I'm currently on hormone therapy (tamoxifen), and one of the things I've been warned to NOT take is Benadryl. For years, I've used it like you did, to take the itch out of itches. Never gave it a thought. Now, I have to check with my doctors about EVERYTHING including over-the-counter stuff. When I got a sore throat, I had to get an ok to take Theraflu, Sudafed etc. Royal pain-in-the-you-know-what, but it has made me very aware that we forget how powerful some of that stuff can be. Some of it isn't even controlled by the FDA. Who woulda thunk!
JoanneS

Just an update. I called my dentist this morning. They apologized and said they would totally disinfect the system. I still won't get another hand treatment again.

The antibiotics are kicking in. I'm much better today, although the itching isn't entirely gone yet. I'm also trying not to pet my cats--I'm sure they couldn't possibly help the situation, but it's so HARD not to pet them!