Skin Boil Infection, Boil Treatment

A skin boil is an infection of the base of a hair where it's anchored into the skin. The germ that does this is a bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus (pronounced: staff-ill-o-cock-us, or-I-us). The skin around the hair becomes red, swollen, painful, and later spits out pus.

Treatment for a boil is a course of antiobiotics - tablet form is best as it then reaches the parts a cream can't - to kill the Staphylococcus, pain-killers, and warm compresses to the area.

Picture of a skin boil:

Recurrent boils can be due to a quiet deposit of Staphylococcus living in your nose. When transfered, eg on a finger :) to skin they make a boil. In these persons, antibiotics are smeared into the nostrils to kill the quiet colonies. To find out if you are harbouring Staphylococcus fugitives in your nostrils a doctor uses a Q-tip to stick into your nose and then sends it to the lab where a specialist in germs tries to identify what is growing in your nose.

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