staph/mrsa

Community acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) is definitely on the rise. It used to be an organism that was isolated in hospitals, but in the last 5 years or so, it is being seen more and more in people that have not been chronically ill or had frequent hospitalizations. Staphylococcus aureus, being a common skin organism anyway, has been evolving and becoming more resistant as the years go on. CA-MRSA is now seen in places where groups of people have close contact with each other, like in prisons, day cares and school football and wrestling teams and in gyms where people may share towels or equipment that has not been cleaned in between use. In fact, a professionsal football player died from it; I think he was with the LA Rams or Raiders...whatever, team is in LA. You may have seen newscasts on Dateline recently about the paraplegic lady who got a resistant staph infection when her foot was cut with a pumice stone while she was getting a pedicure...she died. In Raleigh, NC, there was a woman in the news who had acquired MRSA from an exercise ball at her local gym...she always shaved her legs before she worked out; didn't want to gross anyone out with hairy legs; and in doing so, she created wonderful nicks and openings for bacteria to easily get in. And antibiotics have just been so misused over the years; doctors have prescribed them for colds and ear infections when moms are screaming for them to "give my baby something to make him better!". Studies have shown that by the time a child reaches age 15, he has been on at least 4 courses of antibiotics for something that antibiotics were not necessarily needed. And antibiotics are given to chickens and cattle to make them bigger and have more meat to the bone...so we're getting antibiotics in our food supply that we don't need. All this is beginning to add up.

I work on a transitional care unit in a hospital in Ohio. We get several MRSA patients at a time. A couple weeks ago I woke up with what I thought were spider bites on my abdomen, chest and thigh. They quickly became very reddened, hard and painful and eventually started to drain pus. I ended up going to the doctor and to my surprise found that these were abscesses, not spider bites. My doctor admitted me to the hospital for I & D and IV antibiotics. Fortunately for me, I didn't end up needing the I & D, but the cultures came back with MRSA. I'm wondering how I developed ABSCESSES. I had no open areas or cuts in the places where they occurred. Two doctors asked me if I have an immune deficiency also, but I don't, that I know of. I'm also wondering if anyone knows if I should finish my antibiotics BEFORE returning to work, or just wait until the abscesses are dried up? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated !!!

I worked on a medical-surgical floor and developed a pus-filled area on my neck, in fact, the scar it left behind almost makes it look like I had a trach at one time. At its' peak, it became red, inflamed and extremely painful. I had to soak it in warm water and it finally drained. I was taking 800mg Motrin and it only helped to barely take the edge off of the pain. I was originally put on Omnicef for 10 days which didn't kill it completely and was then put on Levaquin 500mg for 10 days which did the trick. I'm left with what sorta looks like a "hicky". Dr. said it was MRSA. I know I got it from work, possibly when I was on the phone and and turned the phone downward where the mouthpiece touched that area of my neck. It was just a strange place to get an infection...