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Most people who have cellulitis or erysipelas recover completely with treatment.

Cellulitis and erysiphelas are easy to treat with antibiotics. But they need to be treated quickly. One study looked at people who were treated for cellulitis in the hospital.¹ Nearly everyone was cured after taking antibiotics for 14 days. Other studies show that antibiotics cure cellulitis in most people in less than two weeks.²

Sometimes cellulitis can spread and cause complications (other problems that are difficult to treat). These can be serious. For example, cellulitis can cause blood poisoning, which is a severe infection that affects your whole body.³ This is rare, but may happen if the cellulitis isn't treated in time or if the antibiotics don't work.

If you're healthy, you can probably be treated at home, or else only spend a day or two in the hospital. Then you can go home and take antibiotics as a drip into your veins (also called an intravenous infusion or IV) with support from visiting nurses. If you have a long-term illness such as diabetes or a severe case of cellulitis, you may need to stay in the hospital for longer.

But cellulitis can cause long-term problems. About a third of people have cellulitis again within three years.⁴

Some people get swelling in the arm or leg where they get cellulitis. This is called lymphedema. Treatment usually gets rid of the inflamed patch of skin, but in some people the swelling doesn't go away. This happens to 7 in 100 people who get cellulitis in their leg.⁵

If you get cellulitis around your eye, you need to get treatment as quickly as possible. This is because this kind of cellulitis can spread to your eye or into your brain.²

This information is for educational use only, and is not a substitute for prompt professional medical advice. Readers should always consult a physician or other professional for advice and treatment. ©BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2008. All rights reserved.