Melinda Howard’s medical ordeal started with a paper cut on her hand.

Two weeks later, she was in urgent care where she was prescibed three forms of antibiotics to fight an alarming infection.

“It was scary. It was uncomfortable,” Howard, 63, who lives in Taylorsville, Mississippi, tells TODAY.com.

“Just a silly paper cut did all this!” she wrote on X, where she posted photos of her swollen, red hand.

It’s a reminder that all cuts carry the risk of infection, says Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

“It's uncommon for a mild skin laceration or abrasion to cause an infection like that,” Adalja, who is not treating Howard, tells TODAY.com.

“But obviously these things can

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