If she was dating an 8th grader! :)

He was pretty closed mouthed about his love life back then!



I recently heard about a woman in my neighborhood who had gone to a water park and scraped her arm on a slide. She got sick over the weekend and her husband took her to the doctor on Monday. She had died by Wednesday. Really sad, she was a young mom with two elementary age kids.:(

FWIW, a friend of mine who works at the Atlanta CDC says that he would rather lick a petri dish than go to a water park. And since you all don't know him, he is most definitely not an alarmist.

We got "the letter" home from school today, although I knew about it on Friday. A 9th grader at the high school has MRSA so they disinfected the school all weekend and sent home letters today. The marching band wasn't allowed to use the school over the weekend for their practices or to get ready for their competition. While the media didn't pick it up about our school, they've been announcing new schools daily. I think they started to realize that they were inciting panic though because they've changed how they discuss it now. Initially, they made it sound like everybody who got it died. Now they are talking about how treatable it is if caught early, which is a more useful message.

OK I'm confused. Maybe one of you in the health profession can clarify. My D got MRSA at college last year. It was a red dot (bug bite size/pimple) which got a little larger and was on her leg near knee. The school clinic drained it, sent it to lab and gave her Bactroban (ointment) and Septra for 10 days. They acted like it was common. SO, my question is: how does this little bump turn deadly? Did those people not get it drained in time or just ignore the red bump or what?

The deadly part comes into play when the infection reaches the bloodstream, heart muscle/other organ or bone. According to my doctor, staph is everywhere, on everyone. At my dialysis clinic, they do an annual nose swab because it is apparently common for it to be in the nasal passages.

I had one on my eyebrow. I ignored it for a week and then started draining it myself and put myself on Augmentin for 7 days. When it started peeling (and didn't go away or get smaller) I went to the doctor who referred me to a surgeon. I told him that Augmentin hadn't touched it. He slit it open and drained it and packed it for a day. He put me on 3 days of Levaquin (which tore my stomach up) and now I keep a band-aid on it while the incision heals. It was very very painful, but I certainly didn't die from it. BUT, it sounds like if I had let it go and never gotten it treated, I could have gotten really sick. As it was, it was just an annoyance. I had one on my armpit last year that had to be packed every day for a week and I was on two different types of antibiotics. Same procedure as before only worse. Not sure what causes these but I think that I'm just more suseptible when I'm tired, etc. This latest one came on the heels of a cold sore and my surgeon said those can weaken your immune system enough to allow one of these nasty bugs to strike. A friend of mine had 2 at once near his scrotum and had to pack those himself every day - not fun! Just stay as clean and healthy as you can - and don't wait to go to the doc if you're worried you may have it! Pretty simple!

Wow!!! :eek:

Not to be funny, but how are you NOT in a bubble? Seriously? Please take care of yourself, because this MRSA isht is not funny.

I hate to be "all nosy" but when you (Fran) say you got "violently ill so quickly" what exactly are you saying since you said you didn't have a skin spot? Fever, chills, headache, stomach flu type gunk or what? What should we all be looking for? Many of us get sick and say "I'll wait a couple days and see if it's a 48 hr thing" and now I read that time can cost a life with this MRSA. So, how does it get inside you if it doesn't come from a skin spot?

I'm still freaking out by the college girl last week who died of meningitis with the classic headache/stiff neck symptoms and the hospital made fun of her and called her a "drama queen" when she asked to be medivac'd elsewhere in TN.

Most bacterial infections cause a rapid increase in body temperature with eye soreness and redness, and horrific migraines. We are talking ~100+ within 12 hours. There is also vomiting and blood out of some orifices. Not to be gross, but it is Halloween, some mucus will be yellowish green. And the site of primary infection could appear black or scabbed...

That is the usual pathology for Staph infections gone wild. It is worse when it is MRSA.

Not to mention opportunistic infections coming along for the ride.

Basically, some folks need to use a lot of liquid soap with bleach or lye and MAYBE there won't be distorted infections. But we don't do it like that anymore...

Let me explain my staph experience - I am a dialysis patient with a porta-cath in my chest - staph is a fairly common occurrence because of the very slight opening in the chest wall. The first symptoms are flu-like: headache, body aches, fever - especially at night - I usually have night sweats before it gets full-blown. By the next day, the fever is much higher and I can't keep ANYTHING down. It progresses quickly. When I've had it, there wasn't much doubt that I needed medical attention and that it wasn't just something that would go away by itself.

How did you put yourself on Augmentin? Are you licensed to dispencse prescription medication?

That wasn't really the point in my post - why do you ask?

It stands out to me too.

Augmentin is an antibiotic. You put yourself on it for seven days, suggesting that a) you didn't finish a course of antibiotics, b) that you took older and possibly expired drugs, and c) you took another shortened course of antibiotics.

These are things that help create superbugs. You don't kill the bacteria, you only kill some of it, leaving the rest to potentially become stronger. So then you had to be prescribed a stronger antibiotic that is worse for your body and would perhaps have been unnecessary if you'd not abused the previous one.

You are being part of the problem, not part of the solution.