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[somethingshiny]

A friend of mine was just diagnosed with MRSA. I know what it is, treatment or lack thereof, etc. But, does anyone know anybody who has dealt with this condition?? My friend is becoming rapidly depressed because of being sick and her skin looking terrible. She''s also very concerned for the safety of her children (although they''re fine). I guess more than the disease itself, her self-esteem has plummeted and she is digging herself a hole and staying there.

Any help?? TIA.

 

[miraclesrule]

I''m sorry your friend is going through this. My friend did too, and she felt like a leper.

I was upset that she hadn''t told me about it and basically went into hiding for a few weeks. The antibotics also made her feel terrible.

I am not a doctor and therefore take this with a grain of salt, but I advised my friend to take 1 part pure organic tea tree oil to 2 parts of carrier oil and apply it to her skin. She did. It started to heal within two days.

For weeks she had thought she had an infected spider bite that turned into a boil. She had gone through hell with lancing, and treatments and antibiotics that had no effect whatsoever on her infection.

I had to develop an entire contingency plan for Avian Flu and was also doing one for MRSA, so that is how I learned about the tea tree oil. In fact, if someone can handle it, one can dilute the tea tree oil even less. It was good to read about that because I had been using it for years. You can bet that I always have some in stock in the bathroom.

MRSA is a much larger threat than the public knows. It is spreading rapidly.

I hope that your friend gets relief soon.

 

[somethingshiny]

Miracles~ Thanks for the tea tree oil tip. I will pass it along to her.

She has actually had this for a year and a half!!!

She is diabetic and for months her doctor kept telling her it was just a couple wounds that weren''t healing because of the diabetes. She now has many of these sores on her arms and face. Every treatment her dr. did made them worse! Hopefully, now that it''s diagnosed correctly, she''ll get better quickly.

I''m wondering if she''ll have significant scarring. And, she has a lot of pain in her arms, too. Will that reduce quickly or take a while??

 

[Kaleigh]

Date: 8/24/2008 11:55:05 PM
Author: somethingshiny
Miracles~ Thanks for the tea tree oil tip. I will pass it along to her.

She has actually had this for a year and a half!!!

She is diabetic and for months her doctor kept telling her it was just a couple wounds that weren't healing because of the diabetes. She now has many of these sores on her arms and face. Every treatment her dr. did made them worse! Hopefully, now that it's diagnosed correctly, she'll get better quickly.

I'm wondering if she'll have significant scarring. And, she has a lot of pain in her arms, too. Will that reduce quickly or take a while??

Does she have a family member that can speak on her behalf to act as an advocate.

 

[miraclesrule]

I don't know somethingshiny. My friend had no other complicating health conditions, such as diabetes. That could be a whole different ballgame. My friend didn't have multiple wounds either.

I do know another person who had it to the extent of your friend. She also didn't have diabetes. Obviously the key is to get the diabetes under control as well. I know a lot of people who use medication to do this rather than diet, but I think a good diet is key to combatting the infection and boosting the immune system.

I know that this other aquaintence finally stopped eating as she had always eaten (fast food, mexican food and processed foods) and converted to a primarily organic raw diet and used tea tree oil in conjunction with the other meds to start healing. She was very worried about spreading it to her children and that was what eventually motivated her to "take charge" as she put it. She had to be hospitalized a lot during the preceeding year and that is where she believes she contracted MRSA.

The ignorance of medical professionals baffle me. MRSA can be detected with a simple blood test and culture. There is further diagnostic testing to determine the strain as it has already replicated. I think it's called CA-MRSA. Community Aquired...or something. I haven't worked on it in a while.

My only advice is to be very diligent and have her educate herself as much as possible so she can help herself in conjunction with the medication. I wish her a speedy recovery.

 

[somethingshiny]

Kaleigh~ Her husband could possibly act on her behalf, but what is he supposed to do??

Miracles~ My friend is in the hospital all the time with her diabetes. That''s probably where she contracted it, too. She''s in the ER at least once every couple months and usually hospitalized also. (she''s 28 and was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when she was just a little kid.) She recently got a pump so that should help her a lot for her diabetes management. No one has suggested changing her diet at all. She has always been aware and controls her diet, but there''s always room to do it better.

Thanks, girls, for your responses.

 

[miraclesrule]

Somethingshiny: She is going to be so much better with that pump. They are wonderful!! Sadly, most MSRA cases are contracted in health care settings. It''s disgusting. My heart goes out to her. She has nothing to be ashamed of, but I learned from my friend just how awful it makes a person fell...and frustrated. I will keep her in my prayers.

 

[lisa1.01fvs1]

For MRSA - Vacomycin is the only drug to treat it for now.

There are actually several worse bacterial infections you can get and a VRSA which is Vanco-resistant.

I used to work in a hosp. and exposed daily. A person can "colonize" MRSA in their system and whole families can be effected. Most helthy people can have MRSA in their
systems (nostrils) but an otherwise healthy immune system can keep it at bay.

My dad had virtually no immune system at the end of a very long illness last year and he had among MRSA (blood) - E. bacter cloachiae (sp), Aspergillas and E.coli meningitis.

Nasty, nasty, nasty bugs.

Sorry to hear about your friend.

 

[lover in athens]

from a dermatologist''s perspective:
ca-MRSA (yes, community acquired) is very common. MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant staph aureus. basically a common bacteria that has mutated and found a way to be resistant to typical penicllin treatments. dermatologists are VERY aware of it, and make the diagnosis on a regular basis. i personally saw at least 2-3 cases/wk. unfortunately, the community doctors are less aware, and are somewhat more hesitant to treat it. it actually is NOT very difficult to treat, if done correctly. for "boils," sometimes all that is needed is a simple incision and drainage (aka lancing), however, if there are more lesions, then oral antiobiotcs are almost always indicated. unlike the hospital acquired MRSA that lisa mentioned, there ARE treatments other than vancomycin (which is a strong intravenous antiobiotic). most commonly used in an outpatient setting is bactrim and rifampin. both well tolerated and both work quite well.

the problem comes from over and under diagnosing. we don''t want to OVER diagnose MRSA because that breeds MORE antibiotic resistant strains. and yet, we obviously don''t want to under diagnose, because then people develop more lesions and can be contagious.

generally what i''ve done is unless i''m VERY suspicious the patient has MRSA (known exposure or contact, or sometimes just based on what the sore looks like), is take a culture (VERY easy in office procedure) and start a generic antiobiotic like keflex (which is used for most skin infections that aren''t mrsa). we await the culture results and IF it actually is mrsa,then we simply switch over to the other antibiotics that that particular bacterial strain is sensitive to.
blood cultures aren''t necessary unless the patient is very sick. and that generally only comes from the strains that are acquired in the hospital.

hope that helps...

 

[somethingshiny]

Thanks, girls, for all the info. I have to say, I''m surprised at how "easy" the diagnosis is and how LONG it took to get it. I usually take comfort in having older doctors, you know, they''ve pretty much seen it all and treated it all. I wonder if this would be the time to find a new dr, or just keep working with the current now that there''s a plan of action.

 

[lover in athens]

forgot to add:
one thing your friend should DEFINITELY ask her doctor about is:
hibiclens baths or bleach baths (basically cleansing regimens that help prevent mrsa from recurring and are also good for close contacts)
also, may want to ask about mupirocin intranasally to stop carriage of the bug...

 

[deegee]

My mother was in the hospital for a while last year with MRSA. She had a sore that wouldn''t heal and kept getting worse and worse. She was on various antibiotics for several months. The last antibiotc before she was hospitalized killed almost all of her blood platelets, and it got really scary at that point. I won''t go into details, but once she was hospitalized and treated aggressively she began getting better. It took a few more months of aggressive treatment for her to completely heal. In the meantime, she felt like an outcast! The hospital had to call the CDC, and everyone had to wear gowns, masks and gloves around her. She got very, very depressed, but she''s so much better now. She was actually joking a little about the whole experience the other day.

 

[HOUMedGal]

MRSA is simply a tougher, more resistant cousin to a bacteria that's been around forever. It does indeed stand for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcous Aureus, which means it's staph aureus bacteria that's resistant to the penicillin family drugs that other staph aureus are killed or inhibited by. Vancomycin isn't the ONLY drug that can kill it (there are other options, like Clindamycin, Sulfamethoxazole-Trimethoprim aka Bactrim for outpatient oral therapy, depending on the sensitivities of the specific drug causing the patient's infection) but Vanc is indeed our go-to antibiotic for serious infections (i.e. those requiring hospitalization) that could have possibly been caused by MRSA. In the past, MRSA was found almost exclusively in hospitals and other long-term care type facilities, but in the past few years, community-acquired MRSA (c-MRSA or caMRSA) has become a significant issue.

Indeed, you can become "colonized" with MRSA, which means that it lives in/on your body at all times (without causing any signs of infection) and is more likely to set up shop and cause an acute infection whenever you have an open sore of some type, or when your body's immune system is compromised for whatever reason. It's also pretty common for entire families to become colonized together, since they live together and have such close contact.

There are several different ways that colonization can be treated....one that's pretty common is treating the entire family of the patient with intranasal bactroban aka mupirocin (topical antibiotic spread into the nostrils). I've also seen dilute bleach baths (1/4 cup bleach per full bathtub) used for kiddos who continually become infected...especially kids with skin conditions like bad eczema, who get continual superinfections of their skin lesions.

For your friend, one of the primary objectives should be getting her diabetes under control. The reason diabetics tend to get infections is that bacteria love the high glucose concentration in their bloodstreams....so the better controlled her diabetes (and blood sugar) is, the less likely she'll be to get infections of any kind. Her insulin pump should help. As far as her recurrent MRSA in particular, she should just make sure she's working with a physician that she trusts and work with him/her to develop a plan for acute treatment as well as chronic prevention measures. For the treatment of "boils", aka abscesses, one of the most important parts of treatment is incision and drainage (i.e., getting the puss out). Antibiotics are definitely great helpers, but if you still have a pus pocket inside your skin, it needs to come out in order for the infection to clear.

 

[somethingshiny]

Thanks for the info and the real life aspect of MRSA.

My friend is feeling and looking much better in just the few days that she''s been on the correct antibiotic. I''ve told her about the tea tree oil and the bleach baths and she''s going to talk to her dr about them both. Her youngest is only 3 so she still has a lot of close contact with her mom. She doesn''t have any signs of an infection, but of course, the kids are my friend''s first concern right now. I will tell her about the intranasal preventative as well.

Thanks to all of you!

 

[LtlFirecracker]

There is some good information about MRSA here, it is getting more and more common as antibiotic resistance is getting worse.

As someone said above, there are 2 strains of MRSA that doctors tend to think about. Community aquired and hospital aquired. The hosptial aquired is the more resistant strain and tougher to treat, but the community aquired is a challenge.

However, antibiotic risistant patterns differ depending on the area you live. How much MRSA is in you community and it''s resistant patterns means that different people on here will receive different treatment. In my area, we have enough MRSA in the community that if we are worried about it, we get the cultures, and start treatment with antibiotics that cover MRSA in the area (septra, clindamycin, minocycline...). Sometimes that dosn''t work and we have to change course. If there is a large abcess, draining it is the only way to treat the infection.

 

[somethingshiny]

Thanks for the continued info. This is actually the first person in our area (that we know of) who''s been diagnosed with MRSA. Obviously, somebody somewhere had/has it, but no one can figure out who or where that person is or how many may have been in contact.

 

[kellyfish]

DH has MRSA & has had it since 2005! I freaked at first because I thought we would all die & surely catch it (3 small children). He is not very carefull, either with it--which is gross. Surprisingly, no one in our house has caught it!

 

[somethingshiny]

Kelly, sorry your DH suffers with it. It is heartening to hear that the rest of the family hasn''t been affected by it. Does he do any certain "treatments" to bring relief??