Risk Factors For Boils

Though it is possible for anyone to develop a boil, persons with pre-existing medical conditions that affect the immune system are more at risk. The following could increase your risks:

Close contact with a person who has contracted a staph infection. Close contact could mean someone you live with or work in close physical proximity with. If this person has a carbuncle or boils, close physical proximity would increase you risk of infection.

Diabetes. If you have diabetes, your body will have a harder time fighting off bacterial skin infections.

Immune System Problems. If you have pre-existing complications with your immune system then that would make you even more vulnerable to boils or carbuncles development.

Blood poisoning. There are cases where bacteria from a boil formation can pass through the bloodstream and migrate to other parts of the body. This type of blood poisoning can be dangerous, even fatal.

Blood poisoning is a serious medical emergency. Some of the symptoms include chills, fever and a rapid heart rate. In some cases, the symptoms can escalate into shock indicated by loss of blood pressure and decrease in body temperature, disorientation, abnormal clotting and bleeding traveling into the skin itself. If blood poisoning goes untreated, it can lead to death.

MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). This is condition is extremely contagious and spreads quickly and can be quite difficult to treat.