MRSA - it’s nasty
I got this bug last summer and let me tell you, you don’t want to get this infection. I didn’t get it from a hospital, I got it from the gym. It’s painful and if not treated can land you in the hospital for a long time. Luckily (or unluckily) I got it in a place where it was painful to walk, lay or sit. Wearing clothes was painful. That got me into a doctor within a few days of getting the infection. I still had to have in office surgery. The infected areas had to be packed with the packing having to be changed every day for a couple weeks. Changing the packing was painful.
Learn about this infection because you or your children could easily get this, it can be fatal.
Staph superbug may be infecting patients
At least 30,000 U.S. hospital patients may have the superbug at any given time, according to a survey released Monday by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.The estimate is about 10 times the rate that some health officials had previously estimated.
snip….At issue is a superbug known as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which cannot be tamed by certain common antibiotics. It is associated with sometimes-horrific skin infections, but it also causes blood infections, pneumonia and other illnesses.
The potentially fatal germ, which is spread by touch, typically thrives in health care settings where people have open wounds. But in recent years, “community-associated” outbreaks have occurred among prisoners, children and athletes, with the germ spreading through skin contact or shared items such as towels.
snip….The new study was different in that it sampled a larger and more diverse set of health care facilities. It also was more recent than other studies, and it counted cases in which the bacterium was merely present in a patient and not necessarily causing disease.
The infection control professionals’ association sent surveys to its more than 11,000 members and asked them to pick one day from Oct. 1 to Nov. 10, 2006, to count cases of the infection. They were to turn in the number of all the patients in their health care facilities who were identified through test results as infected or colonized with the superbug.
The final results represented 1,237 hospitals and nursing homes — or roughly 21 percent of U.S. inpatient health care facilities, association officials said.
The researchers concluded that at least 46 out of every 1,000 patients had the bug.
There was a breakdown: About 34 per 1,000 were infected with the superbug, meaning they had skin or blood infections or some other clinical symptom. And 12 per 1,000 were “colonized,” meaning they had the bug but no illness.
Most of the patients were identified within 48 hours of hospital admission, which means, the researchers believe, that they didn’t have time to become infected to the degree that a test would show it. For that reason, the researchers concluded that about 75 percent of patients walked into the hospitals and nursing homes already carrying the bug.
Technorati Tags: Staph infection, MRSA, anti-biotic resistent
[…] Toni over at Bear Creek Ledger writes this morning about a superbug called MRSA. It’s pretty nasty stuff, check this: I got this bug last summer and let me tell you, you don’t want to get this infection. I didn’t get it from a hospital, I got it from the gym. It’s painful and if not treated can land you in the hospital for a long time. Luckily (or unluckily) I got it in a place where it was painful to walk, lay or sit. Wearing clothes was painful. That got me into a doctor within a few days of getting the infection. I still had to have in office surgery. The infected areas had to be packed with the packing having to be changed every day for a couple weeks. Changing the packing was painful. […]
Pingback by Nashville is Talking » Superbug: it’s like superfly, but worse. — June 25, 2007 @ 10:55 am
my brother was infected with msra last summer too. he got it from camp. unfortunatly his didn’t fare so well. he was in icu for 6 months and had to have multiple surguries as it filled his lungs and surrounded his liver. even today he still has trouble breathing and is now unable to play sports. at the time he got the infection- noone here had ever seen it (his was the first case here). now there have been several cases but still none this bad. this stuff is serious and dangerous.
Comment by melissa — June 25, 2007 @ 6:13 pm
Where has CDC been for the last several years. This has been around for many, many years now and they’re just figuring this out. For years every nursing home patiet we have sent to the hospital-you can lay money that they come back with MRSA and they do.
Comment by catherine — June 25, 2007 @ 7:20 pm
Hello, I was infected with MRSA about 2 months ago, i had a huge abscess on my stomach, the infection spread like wildfire within 2 days, i had to have surgery on my stomach to remove all of the infection, it had gone very deep close to my lungs within those 2 days, my doctor believed i came in contact with it while i was in the hospital delivering my baby when i had a catheder placed. everyone please be careful this is a nasty infection!!
Comment by Jen — June 25, 2007 @ 8:14 pm
Hi
My husband had his leg amputated below the knee in October and was givin MRSA at that time. It is now June and he’s still trying to heal. It was so bad they almost had to take his knee. This is more than scary to think you go in to get fixed and come out with this. He’s constantly in and out of the hospital and has wound center treatments 5 days a week. Hospitals need to do something about this. It doesn’t do anyone any good to come home with this nightmare!!
Comment by Kelli — June 25, 2007 @ 8:54 pm
Hi My sister contacted this infection MRSA while in the hospital for a heart valve replacement. She was in the hospital for SIX MONTHS and in the ICU most of the time and then LTAC unit(long term acute care). MRSA was in her lungs and caused pneumonia over and over again. After spending each day with her and watching I can understand how it is passed from patient to patient. We almost lost her several different times. Now she is finally home and rehabing. Hospitals are not safe places to be!!!!!!! But they could be, and some have shown that with persistent care MRSA can be controlled and almost eliminated completely. So I ask myself why Drs. are against these extra precautionary measures????? Perhaps we all need to ask the same questions.
Comment by Karen — June 25, 2007 @ 10:29 pm
Several years ago, when looking for a nursing home for my mother to recover from a broken pelvis, I was shown an available double-bedded room by the admissions director who was a nurse. The lady in the room told me she had “that MSRA”. Fortunately, I knew what she meant…she had MRSA. They were going to put my mother in that room! The admissions director said it would be no problem because the lady had urinary tract MRSA. Of course, there was only one bathroom in the room!
What an idiot that admission director was and thanks to the lady who told me about her MRSA!
Comment by Barb — June 26, 2007 @ 12:06 am
My mom had MRSA. She had cut her finger at work. She worked at a restaurant in New Mexico. Her finger started turning black and spreading in 48 hrs. I believe she got it from someone that worked there.
Comment by My mother had it — October 18, 2007 @ 3:33 pm
Proactively clean the surfaces where you live & work.
Protect those you love. Simple, effective technology.
MRSA Staph bacteria prevention
Comment by Steve — January 18, 2008 @ 12:36 pm