Staph infections and shower facilities

[TwoBitTxn]

I'd worry more about fungus from the showers unless using community towels.

Plenty of work done which shows viable pathogenics in improperly washed linens. My department has been working with the local athletics depts on this issue. Trying to tell coaches we are not the enemy can be difficult.

TwoBit

 

[ScubaTexan]

Plenty of work done which shows viable pathogenics in improperly washed linens. My department has been working with the local athletics depts on this issue. Trying to tell coaches we are not the enemy can be difficult.

I can imagine, TwoBit. However, if they had seen this program that I saw, they would be begging for you guys to help them.

 

[Wildcard]

MRSA will be the next AIDS but far worse. It mutates so fast, not that it needs to, but it does, that the medical community cant get on top of it. I predict 300-500 million deaths in 10-20 years world wide.

 

[rawls]

MRSA will be the next AIDS but far worse. It mutates so fast, not that it needs to, but it does, that the medical community cant get on top of it. I predict 300-500 million deaths in 10-20 years world wide.

Vancomycin is basically the only thing to treat it. If you are healthy you wouldn't even notice you had MRSA. Until it gets in a nasty wound.
MRSA devastates the elderly population. Get a post op heart surgery pt who gets MRSA in their sternal incision...They will be in the hospital for a long time...
The problem is, as WC said, there's no getting on top of it. MRSA, however, will look like a common cold compared to the stuff we are going to see in the future...Overuse of antibiotics to be thanked for that. Yep, use regular soap...

 

[fisherdvm]

Vancomycin is basically the only thing to treat it. If you are healthy you wouldn't even notice you had MRSA. Until it gets in a nasty wound.
MRSA devastates the elderly population. Get a post op heart surgery pt who gets MRSA in their sternal incision...They will be in the hospital for a long time...
The problem is, as WC said, there's no getting on top of it. MRSA, however, will look like a common cold compared to the stuff we are going to see in the future...Overuse of antibiotics to be thanked for that. Yep, use regular soap...

Not true. About 1/2 of my skin infections are MRSA. Bactrim and Cipro works on all of them.

However, there has been strains of Vanco resistant staph. So we can't count on it as a cure all. Fortunately, most strains are sensitive to at least 2 or 3 relatively inexpensive antibiotic. The problem I've noted is the difficulty of eradicating these cases and they recur despite oral antibiotic and intranasal mucopuricin.

 

[KazooDiver]

Thank goodness that there are several newer antibiotics that are on "reserve" for those bugs that all else fails or at least very severe infections that are being treated by in infectious disease specialist.

 

[fisherdvm]

Thank goodness that there are several newer antibiotics that are on "reserve" for those bugs that all else fails or at least very severe infections that are being treated by in infectious disease specialist.

What is interesting is that the labs are hiding the result of the culture and sensitivity. They don't like to list the newer antibiotics, for fear that doctors will over prescribe them, and eventually making them worthless.

Antibiotics like Bactrim and the tetracyclines are available at Walmart and Target for $5, and free at Meijers (in the midwest) and should work for MRSA. While Cipro is a little more expensive, but still affordable. While the super duper antibiotics are hundreds of dollars a prescription, and should be reserved for the rare cases of multidrug resistance.