MRSA

MRSA has become the dreaded infection of this decade it seems.  Everyone is up in arms over MRSA....washing clothes with MRSA killing detergents, going crazy with antibacterial soaps, and so forth.  The word "superbug" has come into common use with with MRSA, which evokes images of an unstoppable villain.

In some ways, MRSA has become a more serious threat than in the past.  It is becoming hard to cure once it causes infections, and can cause more serious infections more rapidly than in the past.  This is because it is acquiring more resistance genes and more virulence genes.  Therefore, the best answer to MRSA infections is to not get them.

What are the ways we get Staph infections?

1. Through skin abrasions that are not disinfected.  The populations at the greatest risk are athletes, prisoners, and homosexual men, and especially methamphetamine using homosexual men.  These people tend to have life styles where they get lots of abrasions and have lots of skin contact with other people.  However anyone can get a Staph infection through an abrasion or cut.  The best answer to preventing an infection is to disinfect any wounds on your skin.  While this includes a skinned knee or scrape, it also includes mosquito bites you scratch too much, pimples you pop,  blisters that come open, and razor nicks.

You may say "It's only a flesh wound"  and it may be, but those are not to be underestimated.

2. Surgery.  This is a bad way of getting MRSA, because it is already under the skin and you have to use antibiotics to kill it.  There are still antibiotics that work, so there is still hope, but this isn't good.  Before going in for surgery, I would interview the surgeon, discuss with him my concerns about MRSA and ask what precautions he takes.  If he says MRSA isn't a problem in their hospital, don't buy it...it is a problem in every hospital.  Unless you hear a reasonable list of precautions, such as disposable pens, methods of isolating you (or your wound) while you are opened up,  scrubbing you, scrubbing themselves, MRSA screening of health care workers to make sure they aren't carriers, etc.  find another surgeon if you can.  Most responsible healthcare providers do take precautions against spreading MRSA, but there are a few bad ones out there.  If they express serious concern about MRSA, they are probably okay.  If they don't probably it's a good idea to move on.  

So why is MRSA so bad?

It infects and effectively degrades soft tissue.  This can occur in the skin and causes boils (also called carbuncles and as a pointless piece of trivia, two carbuncles that fuse into each other are called a furuncle).  

This can also occur in the organs and causes sepsis which means rotting from the inside out.

At this point, I wish I had a funny story to tell, because whenever I read about sepsis, it makes me want to cry.  Unfortunately, I can't think of any funny stories about people rotting from the inside out.