Contact with Mrsa, now I'm so afraid?

Nurses General Nursing

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I work at an nursing home and I'm a CNA there until I finished school for nursing. I was working with a patient and she was on Precautions. Well stupid me, I made a few mistakes. Ok, when I went in her room, I used a gown and gloves. I had to help with her dressings and she has so many. It takes to nurses and so I had to hold/ support her on one side of the bed while they took care of her dressings. And her body was pressing against me. Mistake. Thats when I learned she was on contact for mrsa- she said it was in her foot only. But doesn't it affect the whole body and she said that it had healed and she waiting to be retested.

Now before that, i wasn't as careful as I should have been, once while I was getting her ready for bed, I put my soiled gown in a bag and had an emergency put the bag down ( a patient was having a heart attack) then came back to the bag and picked it up with no gloves. Prior to knowing she had mrsa. She was on our rehab unit. And I set up her food and touch her without gloves because I didn't know she was even on contact until she was on our side and I have a daughter and I'm so scared and paranoid and I'm going to the doctor tomorrow and asking to be tested, but I'm so afraid thinking back on how I wasn't careful enough. Any advice?

Specializes in LTC, Hospice, Case Management.

OP, I'm not sure you are understanding how MRSA gets spread & contact precautions. For easy of visualization, pretend its sticky syrup on your plate...it's absolutely harmless & doesn't float around in the air. You accidentally stick your finger in the syrup & then go to the frig to grab some milk. The sticky stuff is now on your plate, transferred to your fingers, transferred to the frig handle & transferred to the milk jug. Anyone else going to the frig or grabbing that milk jug will also get sticky fingers to spread it around to even more places. (Are you following?).

Points to remember:

1. See how important hand washing is? If you had washed your hands immediately, none of it would have been spread around.

2. See how easy it is to get from one person to the next? That's how it gets spread in healthcare communities as well as out in public.

3. If there had been plate cover on in the first place you never would have gotten it on your finger.....this is true of MRSA wounds covered with a dressing, MRSA in the urine contained in a drainage bag, etc.

Hope my silly little analogy helped you understand.

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Ok, Stcroix I understand some of what your saying. I talked to my charge nurse about it and she made it seem so scary. Because before that I was feeding a patient and he covered his mouth (i wasn't wearing gloves) and he had these open blisters and i kind of touched it and then they were saying they were going to test him for it and I've been in contact with this lady and she has it for sure.But his are not closed and healed. So is it worth it to ask my doctor for a test? and if we carry the disease and get older and weak, will we get it eventually??

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Specializes in PCCN.

I doubt it- I imagine since we aren't immunocompromised , we, being relatively healthy, would hopefully strengthen our immunity with some exposures.

Gal I work with is 66y/o , nurse for over 30 years. She doesnt have it.Not even colonised as far as I know.

Op- are you so concerned because you have open wounds? I would think intact skin should be a good barrier.

I'm sure from now on you'll be more careful though. Like I said too- I always thought the gown/gloves was to protect other pts, who , just by being institutionalized, are at higher risk of picking up something.

Make sure we all wash our hands!! we have the hand gels too- they have a little campaign - gel in- gel out.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Ok, Stcroix I understand some of what your saying. I talked to my charge nurse about it and she made it seem so scary. Because before that I was feeding a patient and he covered his mouth (i wasn't wearing gloves) and he had these open blisters and i kind of touched it and then they were saying they were going to test him for it and I've been in contact with this lady and she has it for sure.But his are not closed and healed. So is it worth it to ask my doctor for a test? and if we carry the disease and get older and weak, will we get it eventually??
you can go to your MD.....I am not sure what they would test for....practice good hand washing. ALWAYS....use an alcohol based hand sanitizer....buy your own for your pocket if they don't supply it. If you worry about every infected patient you come in contat with...you have a LONG career a head of you.

RELAX....((HUGS))

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I'm way more freaked out about NDM-1.

#superbugs are creepy.

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Specializes in PCCN.

wow- hadn't heard of that one- NDM-1. Scary!

also this one :Acinetobacter

wash hands!!

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Yes, but I had one on my face and hand (OPEN CUT). i JUST DON'T WANT TO PASS anything back to my daughter. And yes its very scary about nursing thinking your going to be colonized or eventually have it. I've read we have some type in our nose. I wash my hands and use hand sanitizer like crazy. But prior to that. She wasn't on our unit and i set her up before. Her hand touched mine, i honestly came in contact with her. And my charge nurse has me freaking out, thinking if you even come in contact with her, you can contract it and touch her and its messing with me. When i get off, i shower in anti bacterial soap, is that enough to get it off of me?

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If you're that concerned about it, then you need to talk to your doctor/pediatrician.

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Yes, but I had one on my face and hand (OPEN CUT). i JUST DON'T WANT TO PASS anything back to my daughter. And yes its very scary about nursing thinking your going to be colonized or eventually have it. I've read we have some type in our nose. I wash my hands and use hand sanitizer like crazy. But prior to that. She wasn't on our unit and i set her up before. Her hand touched mine, i honestly came in contact with her. And my charge nurse has me freaking out, thinking if you even come in contact with her, you can contract it and touch her and its messing with me. When i get off, i shower in anti bacterial soap, is that enough to get it off of me?

Your charge nurse doesn't seem to know any more about it than you did before you came here. Now you are better-informed than she is. Honest. You can really, really, really stop worrying about this now. Now.

And it is entirely likely that your child already has been exposed to this and many, many organisms already. That's not a bad thing, that's an excellent thing, because her immune system is getting nicely ramped up as it's supposed to. My kids were never sick when they were little, except chicken pox because there was no vaccine for it then, and the odd cold, and I am sure i brought home all sorts of bacteria. They're adults and hardly ever sick now.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

OP - sounds like you're overly worried about germs from your work environment. As others have pointed out, germs exist all around us in the general community. And we're not just talking about MRSA only. After all, MRSA is just a staphylococcus germ that no longer responds to methicillin as an antibiotic of choice.

Think about it - it's like if you have a headache or cramps and Tylenol doesn't work for you; you use Motrin which works fine.

And to take it a step further you handled your daughter's poopy diaper (E. coli), or sputum, spit, or drool (virus germs) when she had a cold.

I don't even like to think about what's on doorknobs, sink faucets and the toilet flush thingey in public restrooms. And the person who's hacking away in the elevator...

You can only take reasonable precautions (which you are doing now) as you will be exposed to more than you'll ever know about. It's the nature of our industry. And our general society.

I think you're going a little too far and panicking. And that may be an obstacle or impediment in our line of work.

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.

It clearly shows a lack of training.I think her workplace is partly responsible for her fears.BUT there is a wealth of info available to her for independent study-allnurses.com is allgood but she should take the initiative here and gather as much info from reliable sources as she can. Our dept of health will ding us is they observe staff inappropriately using PPE.

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wow- hadn't heard of that one- NDM-1. Scary!

also this one :Acinetobacter

wash hands!!

jrwest,

It is.

I've seen a few folks here wave off MRSA like it's nothing more than an annoying fly. What MRSA is, is an indicator of how grave (especially in gm neg bacteria) the proliferation of MDR bugs are on a global scale.

Bacteria have very efficient means to stay ahead of the game and stay alive via frequent DNA changes, especially in the context of horizontal gene transfer. The NDM-1 enzyme started with an E-coli, but because of gene transfer (by cellular plasmids), it has "jumped" via genetic fusion to more than 20 different bacterial species. This NDM-1 enzyme deactivates all but a couple of the "Big Guns" in current antibiotic therapy.

The more chemicals (including alcohol-based and other hand sanitizers and atb's) we throw at bugs all willy-nilly, the more efficiently they counterattack. That's the beauty (and frightening reality) of bacteria.

The search and research from Big Pharma for atb's effective against gm neg bacteria has also declined in the last 15 or so years. Also, some countries (like India) throw out atb's like candy. Double, no, make that a triple whammy.

Hand washing is still the best method.

Edit to add: oh, and jrwest, you probably read that Acinetobacter is one of the bugs where the NDM-1 enzyme has been found.

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