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Messages By: java_jess
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April 1, 2008, 5:19 pm PDT
 I was in my first year of university. I had a small pimple shapped lump on my stomach and thought nothing of it. Within three days it had grown from the size of a pimple to the size of a banana. I went to the hospital and was told that it was a normal infection and that I probably just scratched myself. The hospital did not take a swab! I was given antibiotics and sent home. They told me to go to my doctor the next day to get it drained. Because it was so infected they couldn't freeze it so I just had to bare withit. That was not the worst pain I was going to experience from MRSA. The first lump happened in october and cleared up about a month later. But as soon as I got of the antibiotics the infection came back and was worse. I noticed 3 little lumps on my leg at the beginning of november and they were extremely painful. Went to the doctor and got put on more pills...still no swab! The lumps went away after a few weeks and I thought for a few days that it was finally over...not yet. One night as I was getting dressed for bed I felt a sharp pain on my hip. Went to the doctor the next day and they finally decided to do a swab. He also decided to change the antibiotics I was on. This is when it got really bad. He told me to give the drugs three days to work (even if the lump got larger) so I gave it two days. By the second day I was running a very high fever, the lump on my hip was the size of a large grapefruit and I was in a massive amount of pain! My friends rushed to the university doctor...the doctor called for the results of my swab. I knew it was bad because I heard her going down this list saying "resistant, resistant..." I got rushed to the hospital with a note in hand. Now usually when you got to Emergency you wait forever to been seen...but I was taken right away and I could see panic rushing over the eyes of the nurses who assessed me at first. Everyone around me was wearing masks, gowns and gloves. I was pretty scared at this point. The doctor came into my room and explained to me what I had. I was told they needed to contact my parents to let them know I was going into emergency surgery. Now I go to school 18 hours away from home...and I had kinda kept my parents in the dark about everything that had been going on. It was my mom's 50th birthday party that night...The doctors told my parents what was going on. They said "we may have to amputate" but at that point the pain was so intense that I actually wanted to loose my leg. Meanwhile among all the chaos...the lump had doubled in size within about 2 hours. I went into surgery accepting the fact that my leg might be gone when I wake up. Thankfully when I did wake up it was still there! The first night in the hospital was a very scary night I was constantly monitered. The next day and the next 2 1/2 months was torture. When I woke up a nurse came in and told me I had to get my packing changed...I didn't know what that was...but I was about to find out. They took off the bandage and the infection was still growing...they had cut a huge hole in my hip. Just to give a little visual...my surgen was about 6foot and he said he could fit his entire hand (stretched out) inside and move it all the way around. The hole was packed and needed to be repacked every day. That was the worst pain ever... with drugs my parents said they could hear me scream all the way down the hall. I was in the hospital for five days and then was flown home where I had a nurse come to our house everyday. The infection came back many times. even after my whole ordeal at the hospital I was told by my doctor in my home town, when I went to her about a new lump, that I was over reacting. This is a very serious infection and should not be taken lightly. If one doctor doesn't believe you get a second opinion and insist on getting swabs. I am still very carefull and check for lumps all the time. no more MRSA for me! Cheers! |
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April 1, 2008, 7:18 pm PDT
Quote From: mysontroy My son is 17 years old and he has been fighting MRSA sence October 2007 he got it from playing football he was hospitalized for four days. Then 2 1/2 mon. later he had it again and was hospitalized for three days. then 2 mon. later he has it again he just got out of the hospital for the third time on March 25,2008 My son was a very healthy boy a football player and very active, now all he does is lays around the house he goes out sometimes with some friends to the bowling alley. He has lost weight and is depressed most of the time.He has fell so far behind in school I hope he can catch up.The Doctor just put him off for 4 to 6 more weeks so he will get a home teacher. Please if anyone can help by giving info. because we live in a small town and the Hospitals around here does not seen to know how to treet MRSA. For the Love of My Son, may God Bless You All Lori
hey lori, I'm 21 years old and had a bad case of MRSA last year and faught with it for about a year. I am completely free of it but I am still very careful. The thing that I feel really helped me was the doctors at the hospital. Im from Canada and Im guessing ur probably from the states. But I had to go to the hospital a lot for checkups and swabs. Once they knew what it was they did blood tests all the time to monitor it. Also I had a large chunk of flesh removed and it was packed and cleaned every day. One thing I am very careful with is cleaning any type of cut that i get no matter how small. I know it sounds obvious but that is crutial. Also the only drug that cured me was this drug that you can only get by IV. Im not sure what it's called, but the hospital should know this. Also, you and your family are probaly cariers of the bug so you should be careful when having contact with your son. Anyways, you probably already know all this stuff, but I wish you and your son the best of luck. I really hope that it all ends for him soon. You just have to keep persistant and make the doctors work for you and help you! This is not something to let go!
Cheers. |
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April 1, 2008, 7:26 pm PDT
Quote From: mysontroy My son is 17 years old and he has been fighting MRSA sence October 2007 he got it from playing football he was hospitalized for four days. Then 2 1/2 mon. later he had it again and was hospitalized for three days. then 2 mon. later he has it again he just got out of the hospital for the third time on March 25,2008 My son was a very healthy boy a football player and very active, now all he does is lays around the house he goes out sometimes with some friends to the bowling alley. He has lost weight and is depressed most of the time.He has fell so far behind in school I hope he can catch up.The Doctor just put him off for 4 to 6 more weeks so he will get a home teacher. Please if anyone can help by giving info. because we live in a small town and the Hospitals around here does not seen to know how to treet MRSA. For the Love of My Son, may God Bless You All Lori
I forgot one thing that my mom had recently told me. Im not even sure if it works because I didn't do it but supposedly honey works really well. I think you have to eat it but it wouldn't hurt to rub it on the wounds i don't think. But I has to be honey without any added stuff in it. hope this helps cheers |
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April 3, 2008, 11:46 am PDT
Quote From: marylahree I don't have this particular superbug but, I do have chronic, resistant infection. I have a rare autoimmune disease (or disorder) called necrobiosis lipoidica diabeticorum (NLD). Though I am not diabetic, mine is a severe case of NL(D). My lower legs look as if they have been horribly burned, and they ulcerate over and again. It seems that each ulcer is more difficult to see healed than the last, with some ulcers having already remained open for well over a year. It has reached the point where the ulcers seem to stay infected. Modern medicine knows no cure for NL(D). There aren't even any adequately effective treatments to hault the progression of NL(D) through modern medicine, or so it seems. So I live with a certain amout of concern that I could loose leg or life to complications such as infection. And in fact, I have had close calls. Beginning in late 2005, I was started back on antibiotics for a staph infection called psuedomonas aeruginosa. However, months of IV antibiotics failed to cure the infection. I ended up becoming an experimental patient at a clinic, where I was given a type of silver (yeah, the metal) by IV. I was essentially told by my doctor(s) there, that silver has long been known as an agent that isn't staph-germ friendly. Along with treatment to improve the health of my compromised immune system, the silver was, as I said, given to me by IV at the clinic. But, not even strong IV antibiotics and the silver, given internally, were enough to rid the ulcers themselves of the infection. That, though I suspect that the combined treatments at the clinic did prevent the infection from going systemic and, I certainly came home feeling far more strength than I'd had when I arrived at the clinic some six weeks earlier. The ulcers on my legs continued to enlarge. I feared I would soon loose my legs to amputation and, based on comments he made to me at the time, so did my primary physician. But even if I would survive surgery for amputation, my NL(D) degenerated skin does not heal well. If I wasn't a candidate for skin graftsa few years earlier, I doubted I would heal well from a far more serious surgical wound. I felt my last hope was to return to a specialist (in the case of NL(D) a dermatologist) to see if, by some answered prayer, technology had made any advancements since my last visit. Lucky for me there had been advancements. A dermatologist from a university hospital prescribed a silver dressing for the infected ulcers. She explained to the effect that, antibiotics are an enemy to bacteria unless it becomes resistant to them but that, silver is an environment that most staph infection cannot survive contact with. That leaves me wondering if it could work on wounds of THIS superbug as it did for me in the case of pseudomonas aeruginosa. Yet it might not matter if it would work, unless health insurance companies are willing to cover the cost of such dressings. They are expensive. Presently denied coverage of them by my current health insurance company, my legs are re-infected some other types of bacteria, and I suppose I am as worried as those of you who have the superbug. I can really relate and you have my deepest sympathy. I Had MRSA and my wound was packed with silver cell and It really helped the healing and kept the infection from getting worse! |
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