What To Do If

You wake up at past 4 am with a strange feeling on your face, and realize that your lower lip is swelling fast, and your attempts to stop the growth do not work. Somehow, resigned, you manage to sleep some more and around 6am you realize your lower lip looks like the entry-level for those tribesmen of some godforsaken neck of the woods who use to expand their lips by sticking rings into them. You begin to think that whatever needs to be done, it won't be tons of fun; you'll go to see the doctor first thing in the morning. Cortisone is such a friendly word.

Around 9, the swelling feels a bit better, but when you drink some water it gets instantly worse, and walking to the kitchen you manage to almost scare your flatmate. Being a veterinary medicine student, he thinks it's an allergic reaction to an insect or spider bite, probably. The doctor can't wait, because the option to paint your skin black and try to get a position in a freakshow isn't so appealing.

Finally, you manage to see the doctor (urgent cases go first!) who will look for a bit mark withou finding one, and will prescribe you a therapy of 1 g of amoxicillin every 12 hours for 6 days, 16 mg of methylprednisolone every 24 hours to be reduced gradually, and 150 mg of ranitidine each night to protect your stomach from the above bombardment.

After probably grossing out an innocent bagirl in order to get breakfast, and taking the first dose of your drugs, you gladly realize that the therapy is working as planned.