Should You Worry About Flesh-Eating Bacteria?

Imagine it’s a hot summer day so you decide to take a quick dip in the river to cool off. You have the smallest of scrapes on your leg—perhaps from shaving, or from when you bumped into the corner of that table. The cut is so small, you’ve forgotten about it. A few hours after your swim, you spike a fever and notice a red, swollen spot on your leg that's painful to the touch. You decide to sleep it off, but within a day, your tender leg has swollen to nearly twice the size of your other leg and you can no longer walk on it. The skin soon starts to turn black and appears to rot like a piece of fruit left out in the hot sun. 

In the past month, at least four people have been diagnosed with flesh-eating bacterial infections.

In the past month, at least four people have been diagnosed with flesh-eating bacterial infections. A 77-year old woman stumbled while walking on a Florida beach and later died from the necrotizing fasciitis she contracted through the resulting cut on her leg. A 12-year old girl nearly lost her leg to flesh-eating bacteria after swimming with a small scrape on her toe. One man who owns a water sports business in Florida was diagnosed with a Vibrio infection despite not having been directly in contact with water himself. 

Could this happen to you? Should you be worried about getting infected by flesh-eating bacteria? Can it be prevented?

What Is Flesh-Eating Bacteria? 

Necrotizing fasciitis is so-named for the death (that’s the necrotizing part) of tissues or fascia (the tissue under the skin that surrounds our muscles, nerves, and fat). And although we often call it flesh-eating bacteria, there is more than one kind of bacteria that can cause it. In most cases, a small cut or scrape allows the bacteria to enter the body, but burns, insect bites, and surgical wounds can also act as a gateway. There are even cases of the bacteria finding its way in through blunt trauma wounds that haven’t broken the skin. 

Besides its foreboding name, necrotizing fasciitis is most frightening because it spreads very quickly and has a high mortality rate. The disease can quickly lead to ...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips