Cellulitis

00:02 Okay, having made our diagnosis of cellulitis, let's talk about its management.

00:07 First off, pretty much all patients with cellulitis on a limb are gonna benefit from warm compresses and limb elevation.

00:14 Next up, for mild infections, with no history of MRSA, not immunocompromised and non-purulent cellulitis or erysipelas, you can get by with just a first generation cephalosporin like cephalexin.

00:27 For mild to moderate conditions, or if there's evidence of purulence, you should really probably use MRSA coverage.

00:33 So doxycycline and clindamycin or Bactrim would be useful for community-acquired MRSA whereas for hospitalized patients with moderate to severe symptoms you're gonna need intravenous vancomycin.

00:45 This would also be the case for folks who are immunocompromised or if they're failing to respond to outpatient antibiotics.

00:51 Lastly, for those patients for whom you are concerned about necrotizing fasciitis, you may need to get a surgical consult for surgical exploration or even if there's just an abscess, you're gonna want to I&D it because your antibiotics aren't gonna penetrate into the abscess without first cutting it open.