<p><a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,302299,00.html[/url]”>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,302299,00.html</a></p>
<p>“Ashton Bonds, 17, a senior at Staunton River High School in Bedford, Va., died Monday after being hospitalized for a week with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, his mother said.”</p>
<p>MRSA was all over the news today. Very scary!</p>
<p>My ex-husband has been in the hospital for three weeks with this - it’s a devastating bug. He’s still considered extremely critical (meaning he may not make it), and if he does pull through he will be paralyzed, as the infection destroyed part of his spinal column. Our kids have had to say “goodbye” to him twice.</p>
<p>My aunt, an infectious diseases specialist, told me this is the worst thing they’ve seen in their field since HIV.</p>
<p>Wash your hands, keep your hands away from your face, and keep all open sores/cuts covered with a bandaid.</p>
<p>flatlander, so sorry to hear about your ex - this must be heartbreaking for your kids. I hope he makes it.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to another scary article about it:
[Staph</a> Fatalities May Exceed AIDS Deaths](<a href=“Discovery Hub - News & Technology”>Discovery Hub - News & Technology)</p>
<p>And this is why hospitals don’t routinely give IV antibiotics “just in case” anymore.</p>
<p>A girl in my Anatomy and Physiology class suffers from frequent staph infections. She said she has to go to the doctor every so often to have them drained. It’s not good stuff…</p>
<p>Oh flatlander, I am so very sorry to hear what you and your family is going through! This is a very scary bug!</p>
<p>While this is a scary bug, I want to remind people that at any given time, 20-30% of the population has the MRSA bug on their skin. I was told if you walk down the mall, and randomly test people, these are the stats you’d get. They’d have no symptoms. </p>
<p>It’s not unusual in the population I work with to have patients with MRSA, yet have no symptoms; it just means that we have to take extra precautions when being with these people, gloving up, masks, etc. There’s also a difference in where the MRSA was cultured from. If it came from the sputum of a patient who is actively coughing, then we have to be more careful. If it comes from a patient who is close to death, and barely breathing, well, there’s little risk of them being able to cough up any sputum. If MRSA was only cultured from a wound, then generally there’s no risk of catching it from them unless you touch the wound ungloved or fail to wash your hands.</p>
<p>Again, what’s so scary is that so many people are walking around with it unsymptomatic, possibly spreading it to those whose immune systems are compromised, or who have a cut somewhere.</p>
<p>good hygiene, good hygiene, good hygiene.</p>
<p>A teenager in our church came down with this not long ago. He spent about 3 weeks in the hospital, in extreme danger, but he did recover and is nearly back to normal now. It really is a scary thing, something that can hit a young, healthy person just out of the blue.</p>
<p>teriwtt, totally agree - good hygiene and good hand-washing. I tell others -any time you can educate people about the importance of hand-washing, please do so. For example, if students need a topic for a Speech class, hand-washing would be a good one. The CDC website has prepared Powerpoint slides and other good info that one can use for presentation purposes.</p>
<p>The percentage of Staphylococcus aureus (not MRSA) in the population is about 30%. But about 1% of the population carry MRSA (the strain of S. aureus that is resistant to multiple penicillin-related antibiotics).</p>
<p>is using all those amtibacterial products doing things that we haven’t forseen</p>
<p>We have a generation that didn’t like to let their kids get dirty, and wiped everything down, from themselves to dishes, to handles with antibacterial chemicals, and then our bodies stop functioning as they used to, which often just created an enviroment that mutated the bacteria, and create drug resistent strains</p>
<p>when my kids were little, they got dirty, they touched all kinds of narly things and were and are rarely sick</p>
<p>some of their friends, whose moms were paranoid about every germ get sick all the time</p>
<p>This staph infection stuff is scary, but how much of it is partly our fault as a society?</p>
<p>We are so afraid of the common cold, we have create these monster diseases because we take drugs and chemicals for everything, that these desiease are resistant against</p>
<p>I have taken antibiotics once in my life, my Ds once each…just for the reason that most of the time, our bodies handled the infections themselves</p>
<p>Look at the recent study about cold medications and chlldren- we could be doing more harm then good giving a kid medication for a cold, when time usually takes care of it</p>
<p>We are so weird about a bit of discomfort- sniffles, a bad nights sleep, a cough, that we over take medicines all the time</p>
<p>A little pain here and there, well, its what our bodies are made for</p>
<p>Micromom, </p>
<p>I completely agree. My D was a nail biter until on of her friends got MRSA. Bad stuff.</p>
<p>Chedva and menloparkmom, many thanks for your kind thoughts - it’s been a tough time for our kids. Not knowing from day to day if he will survive is frightening.</p>
<p>CGM - I would be up for discussing society’s impact on supergerms, if it wasn’t for the fact that my children’s father is near death and, if he survives, will be permanently paralyzed.</p>
<p>i undersstand, and I am so sorry</p>
<p>I do feel however, that this is all over the news, and it is terrible, and if we DON"T look at some of the causes, then more and more people will be going through what you are down the road</p>
<p>My boyfriend had it in his leg in February. We took him to the ER and they had to cut it open and drain it and was able to go home right away. We actually were in and out in about two hours. The ER doctor recognized what it was as soon as she saw it and said they have had a lot of cases with it lately. She knew what to prescribe immediately.</p>
<p>He was on antibiotics (that were HUGE) for over a month and had a good 10 follow up visits to the doctors but is fine now… just an ugly scar is left. He also had to have prescription soap and had to change the bandages/wash it with the soap 2x per day. It was really scary… we were reading all these horror stories about it online. Luckily his was caught early enough and there was no need to be admitted to the hospital. Through the entire time he actually only missed a half a day of work - and that’s only because his mom and I made him stay home the one morning. </p>
<p>We were just talking about this in another thread a few days ago - the one where somebody was talking about memingitis… if anyone wanted to read more about it you may want to go there.</p>
<p>
Though I agree on not over-prescribing antibiotics (such as for colds), your game is a very dangerous one to play. Bodies do not always fight off infections, and waiting until the last minute to take antibiotics can result in very serious illness, organ damage, or death. </p>
<p>My sister almost never washes her hands. She says she rarely gets sick (which she doesn’t), and she just doesn’t see the importance. Maybe I’ll send her an article explaining that it’s not only for her health but for everybody else’s, especially those with already compromised immune systems. </p>
<p>Flatlander, I am so sorry that your family is going through this. My best to your family and your children. I hope he can pull through.</p>
<p>Heartfelt good vibrations going your family’s way, flatlander.</p>
<p>And I do agree with both cgm and corranged - we need to use prescription antibiotics wisely, when needed. And, imo, we need as a society to stop the marketing game with all sorts of unnecessary antibacterial consumer products which can be contributing to some of the drug-resistant disease tragedies such as we are seeing here.</p>
<p>"My sister almost never washes her hands. She says she rarely gets sick (which she doesn’t), and she just doesn’t see the importance. Maybe I’ll send her an article explaining that it’s not only for her health but for everybody else’s, especially those with already compromised immune systems. "</p>
<p>Yes, think about this the next time you’re in the grocery store, pushing your cart and squeezing the produce. Some little baby child is going to be gumming the hand rail and hopefully the tomatoes will be washed, but even so, not before they’ve been handled by the checker, the bagger, and the consumer. Yeah, please don’t tell me your sister works in food services. :eek: Not washing hands is a great way to spread hepatitus.</p>
<p>Your safe, Doubleplay. Not in food service. :)</p>
<p>I’ve tried to explain these things to her, but she’s not a huge fan of taking advice from her little sister!</p>
<p>flatlander…
I am sending positive thoughts your way that your ex husband can recover. I am sad to hear that this has struck him and I hope he pulls through. I am sorry for all the anxious moments for your children. Let us know how it turns out.
Susan</p>
<p>I think I mentioned on another thread about a friend of my S contracting a MRSA infection during orthodedic surgery in another country. He went off to college and the surgical site blew up. His mom was called and told to get to the hospital in the college town ASAP because her son had a <em>life threatening infection</em>. The boy will be OK – but it was terrifying.</p>
<p>This would probably be, like, the most validating thread for OCD people ever. I’m sure they would appreciate it.</p>
<p>And, yes, wash your hands, people. It is the beginning of norovirus “season,” if nothing else.</p>
<p>My sympathies and best wishes to all those ill people mentioned here.</p>