And the mystery spot izzz....

For several months now, the LGBB has been sporting some pretty hefty-looking blisters on her bott. Like full-on, bursting, sometimes bleeding, blisters. Really, really strange. Then all of a sudden, they'll go away, only to come back raging. It flares up and settles down with no noticeable rhyme or reason, sometimes accompanied with a related gut upset - so it's been a bit difficult to manage, you could say.

I've tried various singular and combined methods, ruling out new foods, not enough free-to-air time, the way I wash my cloth nappies. Yada yada yada. Tried homoeopathics, my cure-all of choice. Eventually, the homoeopath admitted defeat with this one and advised me I should just "go and get some bloody anti-biotics", for he loathes them as much as I.

So, tail between legs, we went to the doctor who adamantly announced it was a Staph infection. We left his office, armed with a prescription and the instruction to call back in three days to obtain results of swabs he'd taken - we were to start the meds immediately (the infection was quite acute at this point, in the scheme of it coming and going). I asked what the point of taking the anti-biotics would be if we didn't actually know at this stage whether we were treating what he only *thought* it was. But I was assured that not only was he 99.9% sure it was Staph, that if it wasn't then the a/b's wouldn't be making it "much" worse. Oh. Ok. Goody then? (I think).

So when Steve phoned for the results early last week, it shouldn't have been much of a surprise that the doctor's .1% margin of error won out. She doesn't have a Staph infection. We had to go back again, at which time he looked at the sores again - nothing much had improved, after a week of guzzling this medication which, whilst the LGBB is a "medi" lover since age dot (where her usual homoeopathic pillules, Brauer's teething liquid, etc. etc. is known in this house as "medi"), has been useless. Greaaaat! So not only has she been taking the a/b's which I do so try and avoid (in fact, this is her first course of anything), it's been for the wrong friggen diagnosis!

Doctor now says, sitting in his office and "confused that not Staph, in fact NOTHING, grew from the swabs I took", he believes without a doubt that this is a bacterial infection after all. We leave his office, once again armed with another prescription, this time for an anti-bacterial cream.

Well, the LGBB has had this lathered on her for a week now and there's been some slight improvement, for which I am very relieved. Don't get me wrong, the horrible sores have gone and it is now just a couple of persistent crater-looking spots that were in danger of becoming infected (which those treating her all unanimously said was something they did NOT want to happen - no kidding!). So these have now become, well I guess you could say, dormant. But this is nothing new in the scheme of how we've come to understand this particular whatever-it-is. We've seen them do this before. Our instruction was to use the cream for a week and come back if not "all clear". Well it's not all clear so I guess we go back.... but for what? So he can guess again? Cripes.

So I'm no closer to finding out what it was, in order to treat any recurring bouts again in future. It was a pretty sloppy stab-in-the-dark method of treatment, if you ask me (look, it's not that I don't like doctors, I just think they guess and prescribe sometimes a little too hastily and you could say 'give them a break' on that one, but really.... I've had my share of doctors in my life and since going routinely, or first call, to a homoeopath instead of a doctor, I've been stunned at how powerful this modality is - call me a zealot, dear reader, I don't mind!)

And I guess the LGBB is obviously a lass who will just have various skin "things" in her life, if her first 17 months are anything to go by.