What is MRSA?

I want to make it clear that I am not a doctor and my understanding and explanations of MRSA are coming from my own personal experiences as well as doctors and the internet.
MRSA stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.    MRSA is a “staph” germ that does not get better with the first-line antibiotics that usually cure staph infections.
When this occurs, the germ is “resistant”to the antibiotic.

Causes, incidence, and risk factors

Most staph germs are spread by skin-to-skin contact (touching). A doctor, nurse, other health care provider, or visitors may have staph germs on their body that can spread to a patient.
Once the staph germ enters the body, it can spread to bones, joints, the blood, or any organ, such as the lungs, heart, or brain.
Serious staph infections are more common in people with a weakened immune system. This includes patients who:

• Are in hospitals and long-term care facilities for a long time
• Are on kidney dialysis (hemodialysis)
• Receive cancer treatment or medicines that weaken their immune system
• Inject illegal drugs.
• Had surgery in the past year

MRSA infections can also occur in healthy people who have not recently been in the hospital. Most of these MRSA infections are on the skin or less commonly lung infections. People who may be at risk are:

• Athletes and other people who may share items such as towels or razors
• Children in day-care
• Members of the military
• People who have gotten tattoos

Symptoms

It is normal for healthy people to have staph on their skin. Many of us do. Most of the time, it does not cause an infection or any symptoms. This is called “colonization” or “being colonized.” Someone who is colonized with MRSA can spread MRSA to other people.
A sign of a staph skin infection is a red, swollen, and painful area on the skin. Pus or other fluids may drain from this area. It may look like a boil. These symptoms are more likely to occur if the skin has been cut or rubbed because this gives the MRSA germ a way to “get in.” Symptoms are also more likely in areas where there is more body hair due to hair follicles.
MRSA infections in patients in health care facilities tend to be severe. These staph infections may be in the bloodstream, heart, lungs, or other organs, urine, or in the area of a recent surgery. Some symptoms of these severe infections are:

• Chest pain
• Cough or shortness of breath
• Fatigue
• Fever and chills
• General ill feeling
• Headache
• Rash
• Wounds that do not heal

Signs and tests

Your doctor may order a “culture.” This is a sample from a wound, blood, urine, or sputum (spit). The sample is sent to the lab for testing. This testing can take a few days to finish.

Treatment

Draining a skin infection may be the only treatment needed for a skin MRSA infection that has not spread. A health care provider should do this procedure. Do not try to pop open or drain the infection yourself. Keep any sore or wound covered with a clean bandage.
Severe MRSA infections are becoming harder to treat. Your lab test results will tell the doctor which antibiotic will treat your infection. Your doctor will follow guidelines about which antibiotics to use and look at your personal health history. MRSA infections that are harder to treat are ones in:

• Lungs or blood
• People who are already ill or have a weak immune system

You may need to keep taking these antibiotics for a long time, even after you leave the hospital.

All this information comes from  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004520/
There is also another very information site   http://www.cdc.gov/mrsa/


Now in basic terms from what I know everyone has staph on their skin.  When you hear someone say their wound, cut, scrape etc.. has become "infected" it is usually a type of staph.     Whether you are lucky enough to carry the MRSA type staph is not understood.  Farrah's doctors told me that it colonized mostly in your nasal passages.  This is why they also give you the medication mupirocin  to put in your nostrils twice daily for 5 to 7 days for all people in the home of the infected person.    It is not understood why certain people acquire the infection if it spreads and why some don't.  For example, in my home we have four people and five cats.    Farrah and Colin use to take baths together while they were younger.  We always seems to end up in bed together, and I was the primary caregiver for her wound care when she had an active infection.  At the time I wasn't concerned with using proper precautions and gloves to take care of her, yet I never became infected, nor did my son.  My husband might have had an infection.  He had something weird going on one time, was give antibiotics and it never returned.   It was clusters of painful pimples.  It may or may not have been a form a MRSA. 
Answers are not clear on this type of bacteria.  It was confined to hospital settings and they called it hospital acquired MRSA or HA-MRSA.  It wasn't until the late 80's that it started becoming a lot more prevalent in the community where they called it community acquired MRSA or CA-MRSA.
There is so much that is not understood on this subject in healthcare, as well as so many others.  I have tried my best to read as much as I could through the internet, books, and talking to doctors.
There is so so so much on this topic.  I have poured over everything trying my best as a simple person to understand the facts.  I am only coming to you as a mom who has done her best to eradicate her home and life from repeat MRSA infections.
I am hoping to give good helpful information to those who are searching like I was.  If I can help anyone, it will feel fantastic.  I know how scary and intimidating it can be.

The blog is a work in process, so stay with me as I continue to update our entire journey!

This was our first trip to the doctor for MRSA round 1

Round 2, MRSA makes a comeback

         So, life went on for 9ish or so more months with no mention or worry about the ordeal that we had gone through.  As I said, I had thought, okay so Farrah got an infection.   It got bad enough to require hospitalization, but we took care of it.  We’re good.   I had no idea that it could return.  I also had no idea that I should have stayed far far away from google.  I mean, everyone kind of knows they should never google, but I had to because I didn’t understand this infection and Farrah’s pediatrician, although good, couldn’t offer me many answers.  I came to find out later that many people don’t have solid answers about MRSA. 

            Farrah was still in diapers at this point.  She was 17 months old and it was May of 2011.  I went to change her one day and I saw a very familiar looking pimple in the crease of her leg along the diaper line.  It was not your normal looking pimple (for anyone currently freaking out about a pimple)  It’s more red, with or without a whitehead.  Farrah’s already had a whitehead at this point, but was still small.  I used mupirocin on it (the cream) and just kept a close eye on it for changes.    To my pleasant surprise it went away after a couple of days.  It never got bigger or formed a boil. 

            A few weeks later I found another one.  This one was on her inner thigh very close to her diaper.  I wasn’t so lucky with just using the cream this time.  It quickly turned into a very painful boil.  It was the size of a small egg underneath the skin and very red on top.  She couldn’t walk right because of the pain.    I quickly made a doctor’s appointment for that day and my doctor agreed right away that it was probably MRSA again and we got her started on another 10 day round of clindamycin.  This stuff tastes awful.  I tried a bit just to make sure she wasn’t being a baby about it.  Thankfully, applesauce masked the taste well enough to take the full course.    We saw the doctor 3 times during the treatment to make sure it was getting better.  I wanted to get better answers now, so I made an appointment with a pediatric infectious disease specialist in the city.

            Also, then was about the time I started googling, and it was the best and worst decision of my life.  Seriously.  I have general anxiety to begin with, so reading about people with MRSA who have lost limbs, lives, lbs of flesh…let’s just say panic set in.  This was my baby girl.  I read stories about people who had reoccurring MRSA for years with no explanation and drugs that were becoming resistant to their strains.  My mind started spiraling into thoughts of, what happens when the drugs stop working? What happens if Farrah gets it and it spreads to her organs and she becomes septic?  What happens if the worst happens?  I can be a bit dramatic I guess, but that’s what anxiety does to you.    I imagined burying her.  I cried countless hours praying to God to keep her healthy and rid her body of MRSA.    This is what google does to you. 

I can’t say that my experience was all bad though.  Google did point me in the direction of many MANY sites with ideas, possible natural cures instead of antibiotics, ideas about the cause of reoccurrence of MRSA and things that might possibly help to prevent its return. 

            See, the hardest part about MRSA is that it is a bacteria (remember I’m no doctor, so if I don’t say something completely right, I apologize) that lives on your skin and colonizes in your nose.  How does one protect a person from themselves????  This was my biggest question.   I could bleach bomb the entire house, which I did, TWICE.   I spent hours wiping every single toy.  I washed and dried every single stuffed animal.  I stripped the beds and washed everything on hot twice, with tide and borax.  I vacuumed and cleaned the carpets.    Still, the bacteria was partial to living on her.    I don’t know the percentage of people who carry this kind of staph, but it’s a decent number.   How does one rid someone of microscopic bacteria?  How do I keep her safe? 

            As a mom, this was a very difficult thing to comprehend.  I didn’t know how to keep her healthy and safe.  Yes, I am more paranoid than most, but I knew more now.  I knew how dangerous this could become.  Feeling helpless is one of THE worst feelings you can have as a parent.  This is how I felt.  

I wanted you more than you will ever know, so I sent love to follow wherever you go