Topic : 04/01 The Superbug

My husband's job requires that he travel during the week and stay the week in various locations at various hotels.  In July 2007 my husband contracted MRSA.  My husband thought that it might have been a spider bite or an infected hair this was on a Saturday.  By Monday morning the reddened area had increased in size to that of a very small pea. I suggested that if it got any larger, or no better that he see a doctor. 

 

My husband was going out of town and would be back late Tuesday night.  Tuesday morning during our conversation on the phone He stated that the area was now bigger than a dime but smaller than a nickel. Tuesday evening it was slightly larger than a quarter.  I was insistant that he seek medical attention.  Wednesday morning it was larger that a fifty cent piece, We called the doctor.

 

I have to say that the doctor was on her toes and after lancing, draining and packing the wound decided to treat it vigorously with 2 very strong antibiotics while waiting for the test results to come back. She took my husband off work and put him on a very strict wound care program.  She also advised that everyone in the family bathe using a disinfecting soap such as Hibicleanse.  She also told us that it could be just a staff infection but wanted to be sure and was having the drainage tested for MRSA.  It came back positive.  I was also tested to see if I was a carrier, I was clear.

 

My husband was lucky.  It was caught early, treated vigorously prior to getting the results of the tests.  And He still remains clear.  The question of how or where he contracted the bug still remains unclear.  I suspected that possibly it was from one of the rooms where he had stayed.  Now after listening to the CDC Doctor, I realize that it could even come from one of the sheds that my husband had inspected the fruit.

 

I wish that I had known more about MRSA prior to my husbands travels.  We are now more careful.  I will also be incorporating some of the things that the CDC Doctor suggested.

All of my family has been infected with MRSA.  We were all on antibiotics for over a year and had these awful recurring MRSA boils.  We were having them drained on a regular basis and it was a nightmare. Many of them were the size of silver dollars and would often tunnel out a couple of inches from the original boil.  You cannot imagine how painful, unless you have it yourself.  I went online one day and kept seeing the Indian spice TURMERIC with relation to MRSA.  I did some research and then went to Walmart and bought a bottle of Turmeric spice in capsule form.  At that point, I had eight MRSA boils under my left arm.  it was horrific.  I decided to stop taking the antibiotics and just take the Turmeric for a few days (I figured I was going to have to have them all lanced anyway).  Much to my surprise, they all cleared up within a week!!  They were totally gone and have not come back since!

 

We have all been taking Turmeric every single day for almost two years now and none of us have had one more outbreak!  I noticed a couple of posts down that a doctor has also taken this for his MRSA and it worked for him, as well.  It is a miracle as far as I am concerned.  If it worked for all four of us, I have to think that it would work for many more people!

 

The antibiotics would just take down the swelling, but as soon as we finished the course, they would jump right back.  If I shaved my underarms, forget it; they would crop up within minutes of my shower and I was using new blades every time.  PLEASE to the 18 yr. old who has these under her arms and everyone else- try this!   Turmeric can also be ordered online from tons of companies that sell supplements.  I cannot believe that this simple "cure" has not hit the mainstream. 

 

Also, after first starting the Turmeric, I also washed down every part of my body that I could with rubbing alcohol twice a day.  it kills MRSA on the spot.  Also, use Lysol or alcohol on ALL common surfaces in your home and car.

 

You have nothing to lose by trying this except about $5 and the MRSA!!  Good luck.

 

Sherry

We had never heard of this super bug.  Or at least we hadn't heard it called MRSA.  My sister would break out in these open wounds.  We thought she was getting infections from cutting herself shaving or something.  She went to the doctor to have it drained and then back again and then more break outs.  That was 3 years ago and I just found out maybe 6 months ago while taking her to the ER for a wound on her leg that was so painful she couldn't walk that what she had was MRSA.  I guess she's known for a while that is what it's called, but the doctors never made a big enough fuss about it to cause her to think she should be letting her family know.  Here's the scary thing.  My sister gets very serious in grown toe nails and goes bi weekly to have pedicures done on her feet to have them dig out the in grown nails.  If they accidentally cut her while digging out the nail, the bug has not spread.  So if the next person gets cut with the same tool, they will be infected.  I'm sure most of us know that nail salons aren't always the most overly sterile.  But even if they were...hospitals are supposedly the most sterile places and that is where my sister contracted this bug.

We determined that my sister contracted MRSA in a hospital while having surgery on her wrist from a work related injury.  I have to be honest and say that I lived with my sister for a year and shared a bathroom with her while she had it and I never contracted it.  So it's hard to know how freaked out about this that I should be.

It's just frustrating that there is no answer.  The people who have it must feel like lepers or something.  And those who don't (like me) feel guilty for wanting to be hyper vigilant to make sure myself or my children don't get it.  My sister has no kids and loves having my daughter over to her house for slumber parties and every time the MRSA is always in the forefront of my mind.  If my daughter has any type of open wound, I make up some excuse that she can't go.  Because I don't want to come right out and tell my sister the reason why my daughter can't come over.  If the solution for prevention is really as simple as washing hands, then how are people getting it from hospitals?  So what is the solution for preventing it from spreading.  How do we keep our family safe without ostracizing one of our family members who has it.

On a more positive note, my other sister is a Licensed Vocational Nurse and she works in Folsom Prison.  So she deals with MRSA on a daily basis.  She just got finished telling me that the media makes a bigger deal out of it than needs be.  She said as long as the person who has it is keeping clean, covering the wound(s), and taking the prescribed meds then the risk of that person spreading it is minimal. 

Sorry, but I just don't think there are enough definitive answers about this and it seems like the power of whether is spreads or not is in the hands of those who already have it.  I'm only 29, so as long as I've known about AIDS, it's kind of been no big deal.  But I'd imagine that when the general public started to first hear about AIDS that what I am feeling right now about MRSA is what people felt about AIDS.  Those who have it have all the control.

  My 1 year old came back positive for the bug and my doctor didn't think it was necessary to call me back.  Finally after calling and leaving messages for days, she didn't think she needed to treat him because his sore went away.  Another one came, and now my 3 year old daughter broke out in sores all over her privates and my doctor told me it was safe to bathe them together.  After researching alot, I just want to know, if I keep bleaching everything in my house, can I kill it, or do I need to put them on antibotics?  Oh yeah, I switched doctors.

As I understand it, there is no cure for MRSA.  The Vancomycin and Clydamycin can cure the outbreaks and can keep them at bay, but your daughter will always have MRSA.  I am no doctor, but my sister has MRSA and she was in the hospital for 3 days hooked up to an IV with those drugs.  She was clean for about 4 months and then she had another outbreak and she was back in the hospital.  Her last hospital visit was 5 days and she got out right before Easter.  And no one is sure what causes the outbreaks.  For my sister, it starts as bumps under the skin...like boils and they vary in size.  They get bigger and the pressure increase and the pain and swelling increase at which point she either has it drained or it pops itself and then becomes an open sore.  I truthfully don't know much about MRSA or how it effect different people.  My sister is managing, but the hospital visits to have the IV of antibiotics or to have the wounds drained keep her 3-5 days. 

When I heard Stephanie speak, her story sounded alot like mine. I was diagnosed by a doctor with MRSA, the lumps/boils keep coming back and would drain for a month.  Lumps/boils were very painful and anitibiotics would not work. After a year living with the fear of MRSA,  I found info about Hidradenitis Suppurativa or "HS".  HS is a skin disease that affects areas bearing apocrine sweat glands and hair follicles; such as the underarms, groin and buttocks. It is more commonly found in women and can be present under the breasts.  The disease manifests as clusters of chronic abscesses or boils, which can be as large as baseballs or as small as a pea, that are extremely painful to the touch and may persist for years with occasional to frequent periods of inflammation, culminating in drainage of pus, often leaving open wounds that will not heal. After taking the information about HS to my doctor, I was referred to a dermatologist and he corrected my diagnosis as Hidradenitis Suppurativa not MRSA.   MRSA signs & symptoms are similar to HS.  I hope Stephanie and others who have been diagnosed with MRSA in these areas of the body, check with their doctors to see if it is HS. For further info on HS, please check the HS Foundation website: http://www.hs-foundation.org/index.html

18 months ago, I was putting wood in the fire place and got a staph infection and got a small splinter in my finger. I got out the tweezers and got the splinter and all seemed good..........a week later, on christmas eve, I woke up and my finger was red from the tip to the first knuckle.  Not really a big deal, but I have a heart issues and am supposed to take an antibiotic when I have surgerys so that germs dont get into my blood stream. So, I deceided to go to the Emergency room for an antibiotic and would see my regular doctor on monday for a follow up (just to be safe).

At the emergency room, the doctor looked at the finger, didnt see any splinter, gave me a shot of antibiotics and said come back tomorrow if it gets worse and we will look at it again.

Christmas morning, I woke up and my finger was red all the way down and part into my hand and we just figured "some sort of infection" so we open our gifts (as it was Christmas day) and then got dressed, went out to breakfast and then headed to the Emergency room. We checked in and then relaxed in the waiting room becuase there were more serious people there (in my opinion).  Well..........after about 2 hours in the waiting room, I went and told the nurse that since we had been here, the redness had spread into my arm and was halfway to the elbow. She said she would notify the doctor. Suddenly.........I was in the emergency room being hooked up to IV's and the doctor said "there is nothing we can do for you here.....you need emergency surgery or you could lose you hand".  About 15 minutes later, with me hooked up to an IV, my husband drove me to a bigger hospital an hour away and when I walked in, they said they doctor is on call...........we will prep you for surgery now. They had to go in and open my finger all the way down and across the palm to clean out all the veins, washing away all the infection.  What a fun christmas that was.

I spent months in therapy and while I still have all my fingers and my hand, I do not have full use of the finger that had the splinter in it to begin with.

My husband said if it had been him.......he probably would have lost his hand becuase he would not have gone in as soon as I did for the redness.

Before this happened, we really didnt know much about Staph infections and I still dont know alot about the different kinds. What we do know is they spread quick and can be deadly. So........if you have an infection it is better to go see the doctor immediately even if you think it is silly. Better to feel silly than to lose body parts or your life.

After this show I will be even more vigilant than I am with my handwashing/"foaming". I have a good knowledge of MRSA but hearing about the child that died made me cry.

 

In the ER I see patients EVERY day that come in with "spider bites" that are infected. Many of these people are touching them while describing their problem. I ask them if they have been "messing with" the wounds and most say yes. Many have been trying to incise/drain at home with needles and who know what. So their hands with the bacteria are who knows where in the community. I am frequently told the whole family has it and they don't know why...........duh! These same people are coming in and visiting people in the hospital.

 

Hospital acquired MRSA is rampant as you all know now. At our hospital anyone that has it has their chart "tagged". Next time they are admitted they go into isolation until they have three (I think) clear swabs from their nose, axilla and groin. It is hard on the families, especially to have to gown up to visit their loved ones, especially the elderly.

 

We have foam containers outside all of the rooms in our ER. When a patient comes into me with  an abscess the first thing I do is give them some foam for their hands and some for me (a little foaming party) before I put my hands or equipment on them. They are sitting in the waiting room, their infected kids running around touching everything; you get the picture.

 

A lot of the patients we see with Community Acquired MRSA are the uninsured; they of course can't see a primary doctor and are usually pretty bad when they come to us because of the cost. So they have been out spreading it for quite a while., living in cramped quarters, many are hygiene challenged. I have said for 30 years that there should be "hygiene stamps" (like food stamps) That is one of the last thing people with little money can purchase.

 

 

 

Here is a question for you..................in studies of handwashing in the hospitals who is the worst about washing their hands between patients and procedures?  Surprise, surprise it is the Physicians. They go from patient to patient, carrying charts, touching the patients.

 

If you are in the hospital ask your nurse or Dr. ......did you foam or wash your hands before coming in to see me? Don't be embarrassed...just do it. Your life may depend on it. I might even refuse anyone's touch if they were not wearing gloves!!

 

All that school cleaning is impressive but it only lasts until the next person comes by and leaves more bacteria on the clean area. I guess we need time released cleaning agents.

 

I must say I was disappointed to see Dr. Sears palpating that child's wound with an ungloved hand-yuk. I am guessing (hoping) it was healed but it was still creepy to see.

 

We human beings have done this to ourselves by our demands for antibiotics for every sniffle and not finishing the ones prescribed.

 

Foam out people!

 

 

Oh, yea I forgot to say~another place we see a lot is in the pubic area..........the ones that have been shaved and waxed. Anytime you interrupt the integrity of the skin you are inviting into your body what ever bacteria is in the neighborhood.

 

foam on~!

I am sorry to disagree with you.  I also have a very close member in my family who is in the medical field.  If they have a patient/referral that really needs to be seen (as in Stephanie's case) and they are overbooked already, they make time to see the patient, if it be before office hours or after or whenever they can get the patient in.  That patient is seen and I mean ASAP.  Sorry to say that is NOT NORMAL, more like insane for a doctor to run his practice in that manner.

 

An added note....I myself have worked in hospitals for many years.  I made appointments on a daily basis for many of our doctors.  Never would we have a patient wait a month for an appointment that needs immediate attention, as in Stephanie's case. 

 

Thank you Dr. Phil for getting help for this girl and soon.