Lola was very unhappy with the small pimple on her face, just on the right side of her nose. It had been there for about two weeks. She felt no pain or discomfort but thought it was disfiguring. Her mother, an experienced nurse, had warned her to keep her fingers off it.
To reinforce her warning, she had gone a step further by playing Fela’s song to her hearing. The lyrics are most appropriate, “When trouble sleep, Yanga go wake am, Wetin he dey find, Palaver, he dey find.” They had both danced to it!
The excitement of the music had hardly waned when, as she looked into the mirror again, her face now sweaty, the shiny pimple looking bigger and more disfiguring, she was overpowered by stubborn thoughts.
“I don’t want it! I must remove it today,” she said to herself. Out of view of her mum, she grasped the pimple between her two fingers and squeezed it. A creamy, cheesy substance came out followed by a little blood. She felt satisfied and fulfilled.
The following day, it was slightly swollen. Again, on the advice of a friend, she rubbed some palm oil on it. Two days later she observed that the swelling had gone bigger and was now tender to touch.
“It will soon go away,” she reassured herself. Instead, she woke up with a fever and severe headache the next day. Her eyelids and the whole of the right side of her face were now puffy. And it was spreading to the left side of her face too! Alarmed she decided to see her family doctor who insisted that she should see an ophthalmologist immediately.
Alao-Akala’s FM radio cancels live interview programme for Seyi Makinde on arrival in Ogbomoso
By now the fever and headache had increased and her face was markedly swollen. It was so swollen that it was impossible for any of her friends to recognise her easily. Even the ophthalmologist had to part her lids with his two hands before he could see her eyeballs. Her visual acuity was impaired in the right eye; the eyeball was stationary and there was no movement in any direction. The ophthalmologist made a diagnosis of cavernous sinus thrombosis.
“Cavernous sinus thrombosis, as its name implies, is the formation of a blood clot (thrombus) within the cavernous sinus. The cavernous sinus is a channel located within the skull and serves to drain blood from the brain and the upper portion of the face back to the heart.
Surrounding the cavernous sinus are important nerves called the cranial nerves because they originate from the brain within the cranium (skull bone).
It is important to know this because cavernous sinus thrombosis affects three very important cranial nerves. These are cranial nerves 3, 4, and 6, which are necessary for eye movement, and cranial nerve 5, which gives sensation to the top and middle portion of the head and face. This is a medical emergency and Lola had to be admitted into the hospital.”
“Cavernous thrombosis is caused by bacterial infections and can result in serious complications and even death. Because the veins on the part of the skin of the face above the level of the mouth or in the nose and ears drain into the cavernous sinus, any infection of these areas can spread directly into the cavernous sinus and into the brain.
This is what happened in Lola’s case. When she pressed the pimple on her face, she got it infected and the infection spread through the veins into the cavernous sinus setting up a chain of events with severe consequences.”
To prevent this problem from happening, it would be advisable not to tamper with any pimple or boil on your face. Any boil or infection of the nose and ears should also be treated using the appropriate antibiotics in the right dosages and for an adequate length of time. Self-medication should be avoided because the consequences of inadequate treatment are too serious to imagine.
Lola spent more than six weeks in hospital and it took more than six months after before she could go back to work. Please don’t trouble trouble if you don’t want trouble to trouble you. Let’s reinforce the message by dancing to Fela Kuti’s song, “Palaver he dey find.”
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