Lumps on face and some swelling, have moved position over a week
Posted , 1 user is following.
Hi all
Last weekend I felt there was a lump or two, possibly spots, under my beard that were hard, itchy and annoying. On Monday I woke up and the left side of my face was swollen, to the point where it was difficult to move my tongue that way and I was dribbling my coffee as my face was misshapen! Thinking I'd had an allergic reaction of some sort I got an emergency doctors appointment. 2 hours later I saw my GP; the swelling had gone down a lot but was still visible. He asked me a 101 questions (he's one of the better GPs, very analytical) but was really stumped. He prescribed antibiotics (penicillin based). Later than day the swelling had almost gone and it just felt like spots so I decided to decline the antibiotics (I'd rather not take if I can avoid).
In the evening I decided to trim my beard down to help the itching and 'have a look'. I trimmed in that area from about 20mm of hair to 5mm of hair and was able to just about see some lumpy red irritation. No 'head' visible, unlike a spot or ingrowing hair.
Next day very little swelling and just the lumps. Next few days felt similar, but the lumpsmoved down and across to the middle of my chin, and by Thursday evening they were on the right side of my face (still a bit of the left but less than before). This morning I woke up and the right side of my face was swollen! Not as bad as a week ago but enough for my tongue to notice from the inside.
I'm a 41 year old physically active and healthy eating male in the UK, non-smoker but do drink a little more than I should. Only allergic reaction I've ever had is a visible (but non itchy) rash on back, chest & throat after some seafood - but I eat seafood regularly and usually have no problems. I feel fine otherwise and there's no other symptoms of any sort. I haven't changed my diet nor face soap/creams or anything like that. Don't recall being bitten or stung by anything.
Any ideas? Really itchy today and driving me nuts!
Thanks
Ross
0 likes, 1 reply
mrrossi
Posted
It seems that this may just have been an ingrowing hair or two after all! My wife was able to find two 'heads' to spots and what appeared to be an ingrowing hair. She plucked this out and squeezed both spots; there was a huge amount of pus under and around the whole skin area. I think it just got badly infected... horrible! The lumps are finally going down though now.