‘Little House on the Prairie’ star Melissa Gilbert spends the night in the ER after a nasty bug bite

Melissa Gilbert has revealed that a scary insect bite sent her to the emergency room.

The actress, who played Laura Ingalls Wilder in “Little House on the Prairie,” took to Instagram to share that she was rushed to a hospital in New York after an insect bit her, causing her arm to swell completely.

Gilbert, 59, revealed the bite was not from a ‘bee or wasp’ but from another ‘flying insect’. Gilbert’s doctor and her husband, Timothy Busfield, urged her to “go” to the emergency room after her arm continued to swell.

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“PSA: Well that was a fun night in the ER (she said with dripping sarcasm),” Gilbert captioned the post of her hand in an IV and a close-up of her swollen arm. “Two days ago a flying insect (not a bee or a wasp) bit my arm. Last night my arm was incredibly swollen, red and burning.”

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She continued, “I called my (doctor and) he suggested going to the ER. I was going to wait but (Timothy) said, ‘Absolutely not. Let’s go!” After many tests, I was diagnosed with an abscess and cellulitis.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, cellulitis is “a common and potentially serious bacterial skin infection. The affected skin is swollen and inflamed and is usually painful and hot to the touch.”

Gilbert’s doctors began treating her with an “IV of clindamycin, Benedryl, and acetaminophen,” which she said “immediately” improved the infected area.

“Still kept me up all night. Start antibiotics, Benedryl and oral ibuprofen today,” she clarified.

Gilbert urged his social media followers to use his case as a lesson in taking bug bites seriously.

Timothy Busfield and his wife Melissa Gilbert in 2018. (Photo by Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas)

Timothy Busfield has urged his wife Melissa Gilbert to go to the emergency room after her arm began to swell. (Photo by Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas)

“The taking class virus is a serious bite! If it swells like crazy (my whole arm was swollen!), don’t wait to get treated thinking ‘it’s just a little bite. How bad can this get?” Go to your doctor or the ER or the ER. I’m serious!” she continued.

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“Back in the days of #lauraingallswilder that would have meant death or amputation. There is treatment available. So now I’m going to take my meds and rest like the good bunny that I am. Stupid bug bite Gilbert concluded, before thanking the staff at Bon Secours Hospital in Port Jervis, NY.

In May 2022, Gilbert shared with Fox News Digital that she and her husband had moved to upstate New York and proudly adopted their country home where they grew their own food and raised chickens.

Melissa Gilbert moved to upstate New York in 2018. (Photo by Roy Rochlin)

“We bought this place in the winter of 2018. We started cleaning it up and making it livable soon after,” Gilbert told Fox News Digital last year.

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“We were taking it apart and wiping it down. I think at that point I knew it could be a house once we put it together. There was no heating and the plumbing was a bit wonky We had to drain everything in the house, because it was fully furnished, I mean, to the point where there was cereal in the cabinets and soap in the shower. It was like people just left the house, and she stayed there for decades like that,” she says.

As part of a more natural lifestyle, Gilbert has ditched plastic surgery — along with societal expectations of Hollywood — and feels free in her own skin. She shared her journey inside her book titled “Back to the prairie: a house remade, a life rediscovered”.