Warning to all truck stop showers and bacteria

I've heard of this mostly from gym showers, but never worried much about it. Yesterday, I did a reset at a flying j in TN, and got a shower in the AM.

After my shower I went in and ate at Denny's and my left elbow was hurting a bit but nothing major. After I ate I got up bought some drinks and my elbow was hurting more but I thought maybe I hit it sometime while I was sleeping.

I started my drive and my arm kept hurting more and more. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and I could feel it seemed like it was swelling up.

I kept going and got past 3hrs of drive time so I could do a reset and could barely move my arm at that point. I'm still thinking I must have just strained my arm somehow but after I stopped and checked it, I had swollen area about the size of half a golf ball.

Obviously at that point I know it's not because I strained it or hit it. I was in a lot of pain at this point, so I drove myself to the closet emergency room.

Turns out I got some sort of infection in my arm from when I took the shower. It happened very fast and my guess is I must have picked up something by using a wash cloth and letting it hang aff the shower handle.

I always wear flip flops when taking a shower at truck stops and do everything possible to not touch anything I dont have to. I wouldn't have thought about getting something like this just by having a wash cloth touching something in the shower then transferring it to me.

I'm lucky it wasn't anything more serious because stuff like mersa and other nasty untreatable bacteria have been known to be spread like this.

I wanted to give people a heads up about this because I would of never expected something like this to happen and I felt I was being fairly safe about it..

 

Did the doc give any info on what it was and how it was transmitted?

 

I've had mrsa. It's not fun. Do not scratch yourself with your finger nails. No bacteria is immune to iodine. So keep some Betadine on hand. And shower often. And take proper vitamins because most bacteria get the best of you when your immune system is out of whack. And proper sleep helps you stay healthy as well as trying to exercise. And eating well. But I'm a hypocrite on half of this. Yet I keep trying to be healthy. Good luck.

 

Well I've been doing Truck Stop showers at reputable chain truck stops for decades and never contracted any such issue. However some of those tiny spaces are ripe for hitting elbows on faucet and other fixtures. Can't count how many times I banged an elbow or funny bone on the faucet and scalded myself to boot.

 

Elbow bursitis, if you look it up on Google the pictures is exactly what my arm looked like. Today, it's more just swollen around my foram but near the elbow.

I know I got it by using the washcloth as that's the only thing that had any contact with my elbow area.

 

MRSA is deadly in some cases, vital to have it checked and treated ASAP. I used to be a personal trainer and at one of my former gyms I worked for, they had a major outbreak about a year after I left and it ended up putting them out of business permanently after the fallout.

I was never gone long enough to need to use TS showers much, and this is a major reason I often declined when I was. A lot of places barely mop them up after use and a lot don’t disinfect them often enough either (or never in some cases sadly). Hope you feel better and get rid of it with minimal issues...

 

The bad bacteria and virus are everywhere. It only when they get in the body that they mess you up. So my guess is you had a cut on your eyebrow or somehow cut your eyebrow and or elbow while in the shower.

 

This is kinda a problem for me is I also have psoriasis which has gotten a lot worse since I started OTR do to all the changes of climate and my skin always drying out.

This makes me a bit more susceptible to something like this which has me thinking of ending my or job. I was pretty scary having this happen so fast and not having any idea what was going on.

 

Yea, I was definitely lucky it's not more serious but I'm still dealing with the swelling. I have to take meds for the next week.