mrsa

[lummox]

shit. yall think you got problems? i got a fuking mrsa infection on my fukin head. had to have the bastard boil lanced. pus and blood and pain. just awesome. four difrent antibiotics later and the medicos think they got it licked. i am scarred for life. again. more.

[Gary_Yngve]

Do you know where you got it from?

 

Do you work in a hospital?

[Norman_Clyde]

MRSA has jumped the boundaries of the hospital and is now well established in the community. But all is not lost-- several oral antibiotics are usually effective against it, especially Bactrim (sulfa) and clindamycin.

[Thinker]

A year and a half a go I had MRSA pneumonia in my lungs and in my pleural space (the space between the lungs and chest wall). 5 days in the hospital, chest tube sucking pink goo out, and a LONG-assed recovery. 4 weeks of self-administered IV (PIC line) Vancomycin antibiotic after discharge from the hospital.

 

Only now am I finally getting my butt up some steep trails here in UT in decent time.

 

My MRSA infection was classified as 'community acquired' (vs hospital acquired), and it's still a mystery to me how I got it. I didn't/don't hang around with IV drug users or prostitutes.

 

My best working theory is that I picked it up at Pub Club.

[ChrisT]

what are the symptoms of this particular infection?

[thelawgoddess]

shit. yall think you got problems? i got a fuking mrsa infection on my fukin head. had to have the bastard boil lanced. pus and blood and pain. just awesome. four difrent antibiotics later and the medicos think they got it licked. i am scarred for life. again. more.

yuck, dude! i hope you get rid of that!!!

[Thinker]

In my case they were the typical symptoms of pneumonia. It wasn't until some of the fluid from my pleural space was cultured that it was determined to be an antibiotic resistant strain of the common Staph. bacteria.

 

fyi MRSA = Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

and Methicillin is an antibiotic that has a long history of killing S.A.

 

My particular symptoms were a pain in my side, not unlike a strained Latissimus Dorsi, maybe a little lower, and shortly there after severe pain when I laid down to sleep.

 

x-ray and cat scan confirmed the presence of fluid where it shouldn't be.

 

Ironically, I initially went to the doc for antibiotics to treat an inflamed cyst on the back of my neck (above the hairline). I wish my doc would have cultured that beastie and gotten a head start on treating the MRSA if indeed it tested positive. If it really was MRSA it likely travelled from there to my lungs somehow, either internally or externally. While at the doc he asked if anything else was bothering me and I told him I had strained my lats at the cilmbing gym and was in enough pain that I hadn't slept for a couple of nights. He gave me some pain pills, but within 3 days I was back to see him and that's when the x-ray showed up the pneumonia.

[ChrisT]

I've had pneumonia (right after my one and only ever flu shot) but never SA. Sounds awful.

 

Speedy recovery to lummox!

[Thinker]

Speedy recovery to lummox!

 

I second that. Take care and don't push yourself so hard you relapse. "Fat, happy, and healthy" was my motto for about 9 months.

[Gary_Yngve]

In Lummox's case, I don't think his whole body is that weakened? It was localized to a wound that wouldn't heal?

[lummox]

bactrim is the last thing i take for it. the lancing procedure did more to kill the shit than anything else. however the scar on my head will no doubt diminish my career potential as a runway model .

i prolly got the shit from 'comunity' . dirty fish guts grow weird things. how it got on my head i will never know. a lot of the infections are going round the fleet this season in san diego. i think it is related to the red tides due to winter rain runoff. i speculate you know

[Squid]

post some pics so we can tease you more thoroughly!

[Kitergal]

wow dude...hope you have a speedy recovery!! spam..sounds painful!

[scheissami]

A large portion of the community actually carry MRSA in their nose, as well as on their skin. I think the numbers are nearing something like 40% of hospital personnel and 10-15% of the community. Fortunately, however, the community acquired infections with MRSA don't have the same resistance patterns as those acquired in the hospital.

 

What that means, then, is that frequently oral antibiotics can be effective in treating skin infections. MRSA pneumonias, however, typically are due to the more resistant organisms and tend to be more difficult to treat as an outpatient.

 

Signs of an MRSA skin infection are basically the same as for any other Staph infection: redness, tenderness, swelling, and potential for abscess formation. Everyone carries Staph as part of their normal skin flora, and many people have minor infections due to Staph (such as folliculitis, or infection of hair follicles). Unfortunately, to treat abscesses requires surgical intervention--pus needs to be drained and cannot be treated with antibiotics alone.

 

Anyway, probably too much info. If you notice redness, swelling, pain, and +/- fever GO TO THE EMERGENCY DEPT OR YOUR DOCTOR. Early recognition of cellulitis (skin infection) makes treatment much easier.

 

I'll get off my soapbox now....

[Kitergal]

A large portion of the community actually carry MRSA in their nose, as well as on their skin.

 

When you say Community....what are you referring too? What community?

[Squid]

In this context, "community" = everyone who doesn't work in the medical field.

 

It's like the physician's version of 'civillian.'

[archenemy]

When you say skin "flora", what are you referring to?

 

I am starting to feel itchy all over.

[scheissami]

Our skin serves many functions, one of which is to act as a barrier. Our skin and digestive tract are inhabited by bacteria. These normal bacteria are called "flora." People are not "infected" by bacteria until the bacteria are actually causing some sort of disease process. So, Staph aureus is a normal part of our bacterial skin population, but once it starts to cause problems (folliculitis, cellulitis, pneumonia) we have developed an infection.

 

Our digetsive system actually depends on normal, non-infectious bacteria to help prevent infection by other, disease causing bacteria. You may recall a doctor telling you to eat yogurt after finishing a course of antibiotics. That's because all yogurts contain active bacteria, and eating the yogurt will replace the bacteria in your digestive tract, hopefully preventing infection of your gut (this is necessary because antibiotics don't just kill the bacteria causing the problems, but all bacteria susceptible to the drug). This is because the "safe" bacteria compete for the nutrients necessary for the infectious bacteria to establish an infection and grow.

 

Normal flora are nothing to worry about, and anyway you can't really do anything about them. Without signs and symptoms of an infection, there's usually no reason for concern.

[Norman_Clyde]

I spent one fun summer during med school researching sensitivities of MRSA to various antibiotics. I worked with probably 30 different strains, which I regularly spilled all over the place, including onto my shoes. At the end of the summer I cultured my own nostrils just to make sure. I was relieved to find I was not infected.

 

These days when working in Port Townsend I see a whole lot of MRSA in the Jefferson County jail population. I'm pretty sure other WA county jails are not much better.

[lummox]

i got a nice bald spot on the back of my head where the fukin boil was bulging out all wierd and shit. nice memento.

[Dru]

http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=0005D5CC-746D-1313-B46D83414B7F0000

 

New antibiotics kill MRSA dead. For now.

[fern]

In the last week 2 people of my acquaintance have had fast serious infections develop into blood poisoning. gross and creepy!

[Dru]

Is it connected to the rotting meat dropping out of the sky you experienced earlier in the summer?

[Cobra_Commander]

A bio advisor once mused that the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is way more terrifying than any threat of nuclear war.

[archenemy]

A bio advisor once mused that the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is way more terrifying than any threat of nuclear war.

That makes sense. My nuclear physics teacher said being bombed into obliteration was way scarier than any bug.

To each his own, I guess.