MRSA "superbug" warning

amycat412 · #1 10-26-2007, 03:24 PM

my exboyfriend had it in his knee.

my former boss in a finger.

i had it in my torso this spring.

all of us recovered fine. yeah super sick--especially my ex--who had to have surgery and me--i was out of work for nearly 3 weeks and on heavy drugs -- but we are all fine today.

PM_Mama00 · #2 10-26-2007, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by srmom

Not to be an alarmist, but it isn't just a hospital bug.

6 years ago, my son had been sailing all weekend long and when we were heading back into town, he mentioned that his knee hurt. He had, what looked to be, an ingrown hair, or pimple on his knee. I told him that we'd clean it and that it would be fine.

The next morning when I got him up to go to school, it had swollen and was red. I (have to admit, begrudgingly) took him to the pediatrician, who took a look at it and said that he wanted to admit him to the hospital just in case. He said that it was probably just an ordinary staph infection, but that they were seeing more of this weird antibiotic resistant strain and it would be prudent just to check it out.

Well, it turned out to be MRSA, and it was a huge ordeal consisting of 7 days in the hospital, surgery to remove the infected tissue, bone scans, echo cardigrams, and 2 more weeks on an IV of a medicine of last resort called Vancomycin, that my husband and I had to administer. It was scary as hell.

Since then, besides becoming a clean freak, I am much more aware of skin issues. At my kids' high school, there have been numerous incidents of staph (the treatable kind) and a couple of cases of MRSA.

It is much more common than you think

Don't mean that meanie face about any posts, just the bug - it SUCKS!

Quote:

Originally Posted by amycat412

my exboyfriend had it in his knee.

Lol any connection?

honeychile · #3 10-26-2007, 10:12 PM

Pretty much all of us have or have had staph on our skin at some point in time, it's just a matter of how it's treated, if it becomes infected, and how good your immune system is. Once it hits your blood stream, you have major problems.

Since I visit nursing homes as part of my job, I have always carried Purell with me, but I admit that I've become even more careful at this point. In the last two weeks, two of our clients were hospitalized with one ailment, but ended up with MRSA, which contributed to their deaths. I'm not planning to become a statistic.

carnation · #4 10-26-2007, 11:04 PM

In 1995, we almost lost one of our children to this. She was 5 months old and had come to us from Vietnam not long before.

She probably got it here..thank God she got it here and not in Vietnam because she surely wouldn't have made it. As it was, she spent 2 weeks in Egleston in Atlanta and it was horrible. She too had to have surgery to remove the infected tissue.

The same year, we knew of several people who contracted it--a woman whose sweater had rubbed on her skin, a guy who was playing golf and some dirt hit him in the eye, and a woman who was cutting up chicken (she died within a day). Our doctor told us that at the same time our daughter was in the hospital, another of his patients had it: a little boy who had fallen and cut his head on a stereo. Within 24 hours, a huge red mask had swollen around his eyes and they thought he would lose his eyesight or even die. He got through it okay.

srmom · #5 10-29-2007, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Lol any connection?

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.

honeychile · #6 10-29-2007, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by srmom

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.

AGDee · #7 10-30-2007, 12:48 AM

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.