[nursex20]

........Despite following strict precautions with handwashing and Isolation of patients with MRSA I seem to have contracted it anyway...........

The problem with that is poor teaching and support even among professionals. People have no idea that MRSA is the fastest growing pathogen on our planet. They continue to demand antibiotic treatment at the first sign of a cold. They are not being taught that once they are infected with mRSA they may be contagious whenever they are sick and do not tell hospital staff on admission if they have had MRSA befoe. Maybe hospitals do know and are still not putting these people in isolation when they admit with a hx. of MRSA.

I am not sure how effective a workmans comp claim would be in your case. It would seem that they could reply that there was no baseline to determine that you did not have colonized mRSA before you were employed there but you might look into it.

I am more concerned with MRSA as a nurse than with HIV every day. I do continuos care now for Hospice patients and I assume that they are all infected due to reent hospitilazation or nursing home care. It is much easier to deal with having only one patient at a time and a big tub of clorox or lysol wipes in my on duty bag. that bag lives in my car trunk and never comes into my house, and in hospice we are not about a lot of agressive treatment so there is not as much patient contact. Everything I touch and use in the patient area including the table I write on and the siderails of the bed get lysoled or cloroxed for my shift.
Let me know how you are doing.
The nurse I was working with when this thread started did finally get her nares free of MRSA but she went through the whole iV Vanco series and then some. All of her personal items at home had to be thrown away and replaced etc, etc.
It is a mess.
Good luck.

[DOCBUCS]

Nurse 20,
Thanks for your input. I like i said am recovering slowly and am determined to beat this. I have many a marathons to run and many competative races to cycle. Nevertheless have decided to give up on caring for others and pursue my career elsewhere. When it gets to the point that there is a question whether a company will cover a claim that nearly took my life then I know that NO JOB IS WORTH THIS CRAP!!!! I AM DONE WITH PATIENT CARE...I Plan as stated before to utilize my experience in acute care to sell medical devices. My first Interview is on thursday and have 3 More friday. I had No idea the world was begging for nurses outside of patient care. Guess what.... that door has been shut and locked . I will enter College again and finish another program before returning to patient care!!!
DOCBUCS

[btraveler]

I am a critical care RN and several months ago ended up with MRSA. It started out like a zit on the back of my neck and then it got infected and the MD called in a boil. I ended up having an I & D on it and it came back positive for MRSA-my doctor stated that 90% of all skin infections are staph infections. So I was treated with bactroban in the nares x 5 days and clindamycin. Several months later I got another skin leasion on my abdomen-I was really frustrated....all along I thought I got it from work, but it turns out I got from the gym I worked out in.

I talked with an infection disease nurse and she stated once you have MRSA it's very common to get it again. She also stated that when someone is under alot of stress, there immune systems are almost as low as what an AIDS pt's immune system is....THAT'S CRAZY AND VERY SCARY!

I too was a carrier of it and using the bactroban cleared me of it. The hospital would not let me return to work until I tested negative: skin and nares.

[BSNDec06]

MRSA is everywhere, not just in patient care environments. In fact, the Community-Acquired MRSA strains are typically more pathogenic than the hospital-acquired strains because of an additional virulence genes such as pvl. Fortunately, most are still susceptible to bactrim and clindamycin.

http://www.uwlax.edu/urc/JUR-online/PDF/2005/moore.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panton-...ine_leukocidin

Colonization rates are high among a variety of groups, including health care workers, young children, incarcerated persons, residents of LTC facilities and MSM (men who have sex with men). Outbreaks have been described among athletes, prisoners and other groups who have close contact without the benefit of stringent hygeine standards.

It became a joke at my hospital every time we had another admission of a young child for a MRSA abscess in the perineal area "Another butt abscess- not mine!" or "At least I'm not here tomorrow so I don't have to pull out the packing".

I wish to emphasize that "Direct or indirect exposure to an institutional health-care setting in which MRSA is likely to be found and other risk factors typically associated with MRSA colonization are strikingly absent from the recently described cases in which MRSA seems to have been acquired from a community reservoir"

Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/414383

To make the assumption that having one co-worker who tested MRSA positive means that the rest of his/her collegues need to be informed and tested is not epidemiologically sound. That being said, I empathize with the fact that this situation has caused you so much worry.