Mrsa!!

I dont get why everyone is crazy over mrsa, in the general pop it's no big deal and is EVERYWHERE, A lot of my immunocompromised pts have had it , and have been sucessfully treated, I think the attention is way overrated but agree a lot less routine antibiotic use now as a positive note to this

I think the condition should be treated with respect, not fear. The media used to carry on about HIV. Once there was better education attitudes improved. When the media stop flapping their wings and look at the causes, history, methods of transmission and those who are most at risk of getting it then maybe it will help ppl to generally improve their own health.

And it is difficult to determine what is the appropriate dose, length of time and even the appropriate antibiotic to give in an infection or for prophylaxis

It's interesting that MRSA has been around a long time and now it's suddenly a public health crisis.

A few months ago I got a MRSA infection in my elbow from a bug/spider bite. The cellulitis was wicked but I fought it off with po antibiodics and an I&D of the wound, and avoid hospitalization or superimposed infections elsewhere. The NP also asked me to treat my nares with bactroban.

I kind of felt like a leper because people judge you "don't you wash your hands?".

Hey Tweety... I'm glad you're doing better. Recently, on this board, I have read posts describing how housekeeping cuts have negatively impacted patient care. I recall posters writing about how little time is spent cleaning rooms, the unit, and also how isolation patients' visitors will leave the patients' rooms and then touch things elsewhere in the hospital.

And to the OP - sorry if I was a bit abrupt earlier.

However the colonization rates in LTCs are much higher. Up to 35% in some cases. Most LTC have at least one patient that is colonized.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/417452_1

MRSA in the community is not the problem. MRSA in the hospital and LTC is a real problem. Antibiotic resistant microbes are the bigger problem. We have a patient with both VRE and an extended spectrum beta-lactamase. There is another post here about testing all ER patients for MRSA and treating colonized patients. I am not sure how effective that strategy is but you could definitely make the case for LTC patients. Also this strategy is defeated if good hand washing practices are not followed.

David Carpenter, PA-C

When we screened all nursing home patients admitted to our facility 33% of them had MRSA colonizations in the nares. That's very significant as far as I'm concerned.

I think the condition should be treated with respect, not fear. The media used to carry on about HIV. Once there was better education attitudes improved. When the media stop flapping their wings and look at the causes, history, methods of transmission and those who are most at risk of getting it then maybe it will help ppl to generally improve their own health.

And it is difficult to determine what is the appropriate dose, length of time and even the appropriate antibiotic to give in an infection or for prophylaxis

Just like MRSA, the media was very late in jumping on the HIV bandwagon. Tens of thousands of gay men died, but it wasn't until Rock Hudson got that it got media attention. When a well-known heterosexual basketball player got it, media attention exploded. I remember very well a magazine cover, I think it was Parade, but could have been Newsweek or another "Now Anyone Can Get AIDS". The implication was that now that hetereosexuals can get it, it's worthy of our attention. 10 and thousands of old and frail die from MRSA sepsis, but yet one high schooler get it in the community and die and suddenly there's panic in the media. The media is fickle, which is why I said what I said about them.

However, I'm not knocking the press. Education about MRSA is important, but shouldn't be blown out of proporation and would have been nice if this much attention was given to it 10 or 20 years ago.

I agree that things can get blown out of proportion but I do believe MRSA and others are important. I have been a nurse for 15 years. When I started MRSA was the big thing in hospitals. Now 15 years later in my small community of less than 200,000 people there have been 6 incidents that I know of personally where people who are teens to 45 have been hospitalized and fought for their lives in ICU coming out of the hospital looking like they have aged 10 years.

Last year we lost the life of a girl who was 13 years old and in perfectly normal health to MRSA. She went from being "really sick with a cold" to dead in 7 days. She was in the hosptial less than 24 hours before beginning to code which continued numerous times before life support was turned off and she was allowed to pass. She had seen her doctor 3 days before that and he wasn't negligent. At that time there was little awareness of this bug and she looked like a sick kid.

We need to know how this presents in the community. How quickly the toxin produced by this bacteria can invade the whole body and kill. We need to know that skin infections are different than the respiratory version of this bug. I do not think that it still well understood by the general population and even some health professionals. We need to help educate the public and provide clear direction on how to face troubles such as these but we also need to not diminish their threat and learn to live in a world similar to the premodern area where antibiotics will not always give us the answer.

see..!!

i agree w/ you all... especially tweety~

we can deal w/ it....

thank you tweety~~