Any suggestions on fighting a Staph infection?

[thrillathahunt]

Thanks bud. I am going to see a specialist tomorrow. I need all the input and help I can get

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[spartacus53]

Just curious, is your doctor's surname Quack? I wonder when he may show concern, perhaps when you have a red line running up your leg (blood poisoning)

Epsom salt is good so many things, you should read up on it. I bet if nothing else you'll still have a great garden, or flowerbed

One of many use for Epsom Salt

Magnesium sulfate paste has been used as an agent for dehydrating (drawing) boils, carbuncles, and abscesses.[15]

 

[Goodyguy]

Thanks bud. I am going to see a specialist tomorrow. I need all the input and help I can get

Attaboy!
You sure don't want to wait until gangrene sets in.

If you start a fever get to the hospital!
GG~

 

[thrillathahunt]

Have you seen that commercial where the doctor is sitting next to the football player on a gurney in ER while he is texting and the player asks the doctor "how bad is my leg doc?" "Well, I'm deleting you from my fantasy leauge that's for sure" the doctor replies. "Well, what about my leg?" asks the player. "Oh, it's totally shattered, did you see the way that guy hit you?" the doctor quips non-chalantly "But I did save money on my phone bill."

That's kinda the way I felt today.

 

[thrillathahunt]

Thank you guys for all your help! I am still going to try what you have suggested....I mean whats wrong with doing all that you can, right?

 

[Goodyguy]

Thank you guys for all your help! I am still going to try what you have suggested....I mean whats wrong with doing all that you can, right?

Do not do any thing that may cause the infection to spread, leave it alone (other than keeping the area clean), take your antibiotics, get plenty of rest, keep a positive attitude. Keep your hands extra clean, you don't want to spread the bacteria or contaminate the wound any worse.

See the specialist ASAP! You will have peace of mind if nothing else.

Keep referring to the best advice so far:

Ok as a health care provider AND someone who has had one of these infections let me give you some advice.

1. Get it lanced and drained IMMEDIATELY. It will never heal if it is not drained. I&D (incision and drainage is the number 1 form of treatment)
2. Take all medication as prescribed. Do not miss any doses.
3. If you have a way to do a direct water lavage to the area (hand held shower worked for me) do it with hot water. Flushes out the bacteria from the area.
4. Ask your doctor about using Hibiclens (chlorhexadine) Can be bought at Wal-Mart or Walgreens or just about any pharmacy.
5. If it isn't getting better do not be afraid to go to a different doctor. My doctor ignored mine and put me on meds. A day later I was in the ER with a major issue which required intervention.

It also took me 45 days of oral antibiotic to get rid of the infection. MRSA is easily killed with good handwashing and you should make sure to use Alcohol based hand sanitizers often and anyone around you should too. You should also wash your clothes seperate until your infection is not actively draining any further.

Do NOT use bar soap. And finally a 10-1 bleach solution (10 parts water to 1 part bleach) should be used in any bath or shower you use until after this has cleared up to prevent spreading the infection to yourself or anyone else.

I have a lot more info than what I posted above. I am very knowledgable about this topic and give presentations on it to Physicians, Dentists, teachers, coaches etc. Silver does have antimicrobial properties but should be used with caution and only under the direct supervision of a health care provider.

Also I would still recommend the colloidal silver in addition to the above

You will be fine

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

good evening Ladies & gentlemen:

For starters, Tex luv is quite correct, Colloidal Silver was THE preferred universal world wide agent before Penicillin arrived. Even today the first thing a new born has is a few drops of the Colloidal Silver in each eye. Since Colloidal silver can not be patented, they settled on Penicillin. which in various ways was a bit faster, but, as is well known, while the targets developed protection from the antibiotics, they found that it was impossible to do the same with the Colloidal Silver, treatment. This is why Colloidal Silver is making it's come back.

I wonder how many millions of people received the Colloidal Silver treatment with almost non developing any signs of coloration The coloration they speak of, can only develop from an almost insane amount of the Colloidal Silver mixture.

It still is by far, the best universal treatment. In fact they are now lining the air ducts in hospitals with silver to eliminate air borne bacteria etc.

Go for it !!

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[TheRandyMan]

I am not going into all of my bona fides here but I do have extensive experience healing and treating all types of wounds. If it was ME who had the boil, Incision and Drainage would seem to be indicated at this point as before the wound can heal, the infected material must be cleaned out and viable tissue must be allowed to thrive. If it was ME, as I am NOT giving medical advice, only what I myself would do to MYSELF in this situation (cough, cough), I would open and drain the wound, use a water pik on gentle setting with a diluted colloidal silver solution to clean out the puss and debris. Hibiclens or Daclens not really needed as the mechanical action is really what I would be looking for at this point. This would be done daily, for now, decreasing to every other day once most of the bad material was removed. I would NOT put the water pik on a high setting as I would not want to damage healthy underlying tissue. This water pik routine is in place of an inpatient whirlpool with skilled debridment by a professional and will prove very effective. It should not be needed for more than a week or so if the rest of the plan is implemented.

Obviously, I would want to clean any item or object that I used on the wound with the previously referenced 10% bleach solution to make sure that I did not infect anyone else or continue to re infect my wound.

Next, I would take great care in dressing MY wound as this is a very important part of the healing process. I would want to facilitate the good tissue cells and inhibit the infection. Along those lines, I would make a small amount of a simple concoction to gently pack the wound with. Start with a basic zinc oxide cream, the type used to treat baby diaper rash. I would put about a teaspoon of this in a bowl. Then add 2 or 3 opened capsules of golden seal root herb. On top of that put about a 1/4 teaspoon of honey. The last item I would place in this would be ONE very small DROP of apple cider vinegar. Ok, so why each one of these items? Zinc is a powerful wound healer proven to be needed both systemically and topically for wound healing. Its action is similar to silver as an anti bacterial and anti viral agent inhibiting replication of the bad boys causing you problems. The moist salve that carries the zinc oxide helps to keep the wound from going dry and moist wound healing is what I would want. More on that later. Golden seal root is a natural antibiotic. Honey, supplies energy to the cell from the outside inward and the good cells need energy to get the upper hand. Apple Cider Vinegar...let me just say that bacteria do not like vinegar (aka acetic acid) and especially the type of bacterial that MY wound has in THIS case. NO MORE THAN ONE TINY DROP is what I would use in MY wound concoction here. My wound would have circulation problems due to the localized swelling so I will need to help from the outside in, as well as the inside out. I would mix these items well and place them in MY wound gently and I would make sure that I put a thin layer all around the border of MY wound as well, extending to about 1/2 inch outside of the wound.

The dressing of choice here would be a type that would NOT stick to my wound as I do not want to tear up the wound each time I take it off. The goal would be to use a semi permeable foam type dressing. Ask the pharmacist or pharmacist assistant at Wal Mart or CVS or Walgreens to point one out to you if you can't find one because thats what I would do for MY wound. I would not use a dry Telfa pad, dry gauze or other type of wet to dry type dressing as these will tear on the tissue during removal unless you are very careful. They also would allow my wound to "dry out" and I would want to do a "moist type" of healing process as this type of wound healing has been proven to heal wounds up to 50% faster and leave much smaller amounts of scar tissue. The goal here, for my wound, would be to open the dressing less and less over time and disturb my wound less and less to allow the good tissue to heal more and more. The less that the good tissue is disturbed, the better. The less that the wound bed is disturbed, the better.

I would need to be eating things that promote the good healing I would want from the inside. Zinc Picolinate is a supplement that can help heal the wound from the inside. I would take, and do take, at least 200 mg of this daily. Golden Seal Root, at least 6 standard capsules of 570 mg each 2x a day. Protein, a key factor in wound healing, needs to be kept in the 1/2 gram to 1 gram range per pound of your body weight on a daily basis. What this works out to, if you weigh say 200 lbs, would be 100 to 200 grams of protein per day. I would not let myself get under that 100 grams per day and I would be careful to spread the protein intake out and not eat more than 25 grams of it within any 3 to 4 hour period as the body will tend to not be able to effectively use any more of it within that time period and it would be wasted. Colloidal Silver, in moderation, can be used internally but as has been said above, moderation is the key. All of this would help ME to create an internal and external environment that helps the good tissue and beats down the bad boys. Plenty of fruit and salads as well would help me heal my wound. Very little to NO processed sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white bread. Avoid processed meats if at all possible.

Another thing I would mention is that Staph and Pseudomonas wounds have a certain smell, which I am very familiar with and when MY wound started to have less and less of that certain smell, I would discontinue using that drop of apple cider vinegar as it would no longer be necessary or beneficial for my wound at that point. Should be within 1 to 2 weeks.

One final key to healing my wound would be to promote circulation in the wound area. Moist heat can be very effective at this and I would not have to get in a shower and expose the wound to do it. I would buy a moist heat type heating pad (10 or 15 bucks Wal Mart) and I would apply it over the dressed wound area for no more than 20 minutes, 3 or 4 times a day. I would use a very warm setting and test the heat with my hand to make sure its not too hot at any time. I would also make sure I do not leave it on more than the 20 minutes as there can be damage done if the wound area is heated for too long of a time period without being allowed to go back to normal temperature.

Also, If it was MY wound, I would dump that doctor. Its clear to me he does not know what he is doing or is not nearly aggressive enough. Most doctors do not do the actual wound care themselves and don't know their AZZ from a hole in the ground when it comes to actual treatment. They leave that to the nurses and therapists so do not expect a regular doctor to know what to do other than what he does with most other things...throw drugs at it and see what sticks. And when nothing sticks, send you to a specialist, who might not be much better.

 

[jeff456]

Hi Rick,

I was reading your post and wanted to reply. I was diagnosed with MRSA back in late November. I at first thought I had a spider bite on my left side. I let it go and figured it would heal its self because I have never been one to be very sick or stay sick very long when I am. I always heal quickly, too, and I get cut a lot at my job.

I was looking up pictures of spider bites on Google and saw what was essentially a picture of my sore. Only it was not a spider bite it was MRSA and from what I have found it can be just as big of a mess as a spider bite.

Prior to this sore on my side I got a boil in the area directly below my tailbone. Being the area it was in I did not go to the Dr right away because one, I figured it would heal and two, it was embarrassing. It went from being the size of pea to the size of a grape to the size of, well, whatever is bigger than a grape and smaller than a walnut. I went in and got it lanced because I could not stand it any longer. I could not sit or lay in anyway that would feel comfortable. I kept squeezing the area thinking I would cause it to pop and I applied heat as well to try to bring it to a head. I also applied boil ease which only caused people to inquire as to what that "tar" smell was. Oh that, it's my butt crack! Anyway, the lancing was pure hell and hurt as bad or worse than ANYTHING I have ever had done or done to myself previously. The doc said it was because that area is particularly sensitive and that it does not respond well to numbing. He was able to verify that what he said was in fact VERY true.

He told me that these things should not be lanced until AFTER they have turned soft or else they will be extremely painful and take longer to heal. It also has something to do with your body naturally breaking things down first and then allowing it to drain by lancing the area. Other wise the cut will heal over and leave behind the still "hard" stuff in the surrounding tissue, causing a reinfection. I am not saying don't go to the Dr or to wait, just saying what they told me.

Now, on this first visit I was not told I had MRSA. It took about 10 days (a full 7 days off work) for me to be able to function. I mean this hurt terribly, terribly bad. The incision had to be packed and changed frequently. My wife provides care, including wound care, for a quadriplegic lady so she was able to help me with most of the after care. Saved me a ton of embarrassment having to be rear up on an exam table with a couple of nurses digging around back there. Oh yea, the cleaning out part hurt just as bad as the initial lancing when I had to go back for a follow up the next day.

Mine was particularly bad due to the area it was in and the bacteria that exists in that area so it took a little extra care and precaution to keep it clean and healing.

[Sorry for the long reply, getting from where I started to where I am today, hopefully I'm not too long winded.]

A little time passed, maybe weeks to a month and I started having this pinching feeling under my armpit and sure enough a small knot developed under my arm and I was thinking, "Oh crap, please don't let this be another boil." Well, it was. This time I did the heat packs, and nothing else. (A tube sock loosely filled with rice and heated in the microwave is an awesome heating pad!) It finally came to a head and drained and went away. Keep in mind I still have never heard of MRSA at this point so I have no idea of what is going on. I bet not even a week later I had another small knot show up about an inch from the last one and it too followed the same treatment and path of healing. Never "a lot" of pain and I was able to work with no problems other than mild discomfort. When that one healed I had some small round bumps, sort of rash like, only more with bumps than red skin, and all around that same armpit.

It is around this time that I discover my "spider bite" on my torso a few inches down from my armpit. I am thinking to myself, "What, can't a guy get a break? Boils, then a rash, and now a spider has to came along and bite me!!!!" I let that bite fester for a few days and was anxiously watching it because I had already looked at Google Images and seen what those spider bites can develop into. I was also getting some small pimple type things just inside the edge of my nose that I thought were ingrown hairs or something like that, nope, also a symptom of MRSA, that I did not know anything about.

It was at this point my teenage daughter was having severe stomach pain and my wife took her to the ER. It was her appendix and it needed to be removed. I went to the hospital and it was removed the morning after going to the ER. I put the spider bite on hold and stayed at the hospital for 36 hours and then went back for about another half a day until she was released.

After getting home from the hospital I was about 6 days into this bite thing I had and it was slowly getting worse. It was finally draining on its own, (well, I bent a fish hook and helped it out a little) but not much was coming out, mostly a hard knot about the size of a quarter. I was leaning toward going to the Dr just because I didn't want a hole in my side exposing the bone of my ribs since the thing was getting pretty big and there isn't a lot of meat on my rib cage. I took one more turn sitting at the computer and looking at all the gore that was caused by spider bites and that was when I spotted the pic that was EXACTLY what I was looking at one my side, only it said it was MRSA, "often mistaken as a spider bite".

I went to work that day and told my wife I was going to the immediate care after work and getting checked out. This is when it was confirmed that I had MRSA. As I told the Dr I initially thought I had a spider bite, he was shaking his head no. I told him that I now believed I had MRSA. He smiled and shook his head yes.

He told me since it was draining and still a little firm it should be left and treated with antibiotics.

I had read all sorts of VERY bad things about MRSA and I was especially concerned about being around my family and grand kids so I ask if I was OK to be around them. I felt like I had been diagnosed with the plague or aids or something. He said yes, just use VERY good hygiene including hand washing and sanitizing as much as possible.

He said this stuff, Staphylococcus, is everywhere. He said if you swabbed and cultured almost anywhere you would find it. So the issue is if your immune system gets compromised and you also get this infection at the same time it can overcome your immune systems ability to fight it. He said that MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) started because in emergency situations such as car wrecks or other traumatic injuries they would use methicillin and that it was known as "the gorilla killer" because there was nothing that would resist it as far as bacteria goes. They would run it for about 3 days and by then the labs would be back and whatever the labs showed they would switch over to the specific antibiotic needed for that treatment. He said that the reason that they only went for 3 days with it was that any longer than that would cause kidney damage and possible failure. He said it was wicked bad stuff, but it REALLY worked. So what the problem was and they didn't realize until too late, was that this staphylococcus was becoming resistant to methicillin and because it was the strongest antibiotic they had it was also becoming resistant to all the other antibiotics.

To top all that off he said MRSA started to become more and more prevalent in the hospitals so they started looking at what was going on and that is when they discovered what was happening. Then they started to test for it to try to isolate the problem and they discovered another problem. The little green bottles of hand sanitizer, Phisoderm, that we all used to see in the Dr's offices were actually harboring MRSA. It was actually able to live in that hand wash solution. So he said now you had a real problem because in addition to being VERY hard to fight once you have it, all the Dr's were essentially washing their hands in it.

Now he said that there is an even bigger problem because of all the tattooing and piercing that is going on and people are not using safe methods so this stuff gets spread even more. So now they classify it as H-MRSA which is hospital acquired and C-MRSA which is community acquired. And now you can get it from anywhere, to the point he said there is no use even trying to figure out where you got it from. Before you had to be in the hospital for surgery before you had much of a risk of getting it.

Since being treated back in November with Doxycycline HYC 100MG and SMZ/TMP DS 800 (Sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim) I have had two VERY small areas that felt like they were going to become a boil, but they did not. I have concluded that it is partly due to my immune system fighting them off and partly due to my EXTREME paranoia that I will again face another boil. That is what the Dr said, too. Once you have MRSA you are a "carrier" and that you can and likely will have another outbreak.

All the reading I have done says that good hygiene and clean living quarters as well as not sharing personal items is the best you can do to prevent another occurrence and more important to keep from spreading it. Also have a healthy diet that keeps your immune system strong. I keep hand sanitizer everywhere I am and use it every time I blow my nose (this stuff lives in the nasal passage by the way) or touch my nose and any other time I think about it. (I learned the continual use of alcohol based sanitizer REALLY does a job on drying out your skin so I found some that has aloe added, it's greenish, and I have had no problems using that as often as I want. Keep cuts and scraps covered and clean (those are entry points, and exit points as far as infecting others). I keep a spray bottle of bleach solution in the shower and spray the whole area down after each shower. I have a 32 oz bottle of 70% rubbing alcohol with a spray trigger attached and spray down hair brushes (hair follicles are another place this stuff is found), toilets, basically anything that people come into contact with. I also either bleach stuff that can be bleached in the wash and for stuff that can't I add a teaspoon or so of Concentrated Lysol to both the wash cycle and the bleach "hopper" part of the wash machine.

I hope I don't sound crazy, but this stuff is pretty scary. Especially when I think of my family or for that matter anyone else. I just don't want the guilt of sharing this with someone else. From what I have read only about 1% or less of the population has been diagnosed with this so the numbers are fairly low compared to other diseases/conditions.

I hope something I have said here has been helpful and at the very least not put you to sleep! I thought I had saved several useful links for this MRSA stuff, but I only found one in my bookmarks. It more or less explains about Staphylococcus but, not much else. If you want you can PM me and I will try to find the links again, or if you have any questions about what I said here.

I would appreciate you sharing anything you learn because I think every little bit helps when it comes to knowledge about this mess, even if it is by PM.

Good luck! Hope you get well soon!

Jeff

I have attached a few before pics (the torso, I'll spare you the others, as I didn't take any and it would be embarrassing) and one taken just tonight. In the one from tonight you can still easily see a scar and all the outer area, about a four inch circle, was due to the bandages I was wearing began to tear off the skin and become very raw during the healing stages. It took about a month for it to be clean enough to not need a bandage. Rubbing alcohol was something we learned to use from the nurses for removing adhesive from sticky bandages when my daughter had surgery. Try that on a four inch raw area. It'll make you howl like a dog!

 

[jeff456]

Texastee and TheRandyman, great info. You guys posted after I read through the first time and didn't see your posts until after I posted mine. TheRandyMan I will definitely follow your advice for "your" wound care if I ever have an outbreak again. Much more detailed than anything I found searching the internet as well as much better than what the Dr's office provided in the way of information.

Jeff

 

[chkn]

I wonder if you should be on IV antibiotics. I thought that's what they did with this type of infection. Anyway, you need to get on the phone if it's not getting better.

 

[mastereagle22]

Well something happened and rather long post of mine on this topic has disappeared.

I will simply say this and then I'm done. Get a NEW doctor. Yours is not following standard accepted practice for Dealing with an MRSA infection.

He has put you on the wrong medication, not drained it, not given you correct wound care instructions and NOT taken into account how serious these types of infections can become.

I am not going to be an alarmist, but I can tell you this could get bad really fast. So go see a new doctor.

 

[thrillathahunt]

Well, the old doctor is now history and the new one is in, and I'm sure I will be much better for it.

She took one look at the infection and immediately lanced it and cleaned it with a q-tip and some solution. Yellow pus and watery red fluid began running down my leg. She bandaged it up and instructed me to flush it with a stream of water when I got home. (she really liked the water pik idea!)

I mentioned all the things that you guys suggested and she said that it was all good advice!!! One thing in particular was the Zinc Oxide treatment that was suggested, which I will do. She said that I should continue on my anti-biotics (she prescribed a new one besides the other one) and twice daily flushing and wants to see me again Thursday. Said I should be fine.

Talk about a relief. Thank you all for your help and support. What a great bumch of people we have here on TNET!

Just a quick note to jeff456- I too have those little raised red bumps around the wound. She said that it is likely a reaction to the Staph's toxin that it releases, and recommened Benedryl.

 

[Goodyguy]

Awesome

 

[DigginThePast]

Well something happened and rather long post of mine on this topic has disappeared.

Are you sure? Posts 15 and 21 are by you. I don't see anything gone.

 

[jharhed]

Outstanding! Glad you got that thing taken care of

 

[Smee]

Now you'll get to find out how good your new physician is . . . make sure that they check your digestive tract after taking all those antibiotics. I had a customer die because the antibiotics she was taking for staff (sulfa drugs) destroyed the "good bacteria" in her digestive tract. Her colon actually ruptured.

When I had the staff infection on my neck a couple years ago, the first two doctors tried to tell me I had a lymphoma (the large mass was above the lymph nodes on my neck) so they made me wait a couple days for testing. Before they got the results back, they then tried to tell me it was a bad tooth. All this time they're pumping me full of different antibiotics . . . several different ones.

I got a referral to a surgeon and he looked at it, said he didn't believe it was a lymphoma. He administered a numbing agent and got on the phone. He got the results of the test right away after a bit of (loud) prodding the hospital that had conducted the tests. Came back in, and cut that sucker open before I could ask him what he found out.

His next step was to take a stool sample after seeing the antibiotics that I had been given. Sure enough the antibiotics had done quite a bit of damage and he gave me another medication to stimulate the production of those digestive bacteria, in addition to having to eat yogurt (not the flavored stuff either) several times daily.

Mine had to be drained several times before it was gone. Great doc charged me $150 for three outpatient surgeries, fixed the problem and prevented another.

 

[jharhed]

Now that's what I call a good doctor

 

[chkn]

Yes, you have to watch those antibiotics. There was one that nearly killed my FIL because he was given a dose too big for even a healthy person and not recommended for one of his health conditions. He was possibly somewhat sensitive or allergic to it and it caused him to have an anaphylactic reaction where his lungs filled up with fluid. Later they diagnosed him with congestive heart failure. However, the later didn't come up until this episode. He took those meds for five days even though it made him feel awful and even though his wife said to stop. He stopped the last day or two because he felt like he was going to die and he almost did. He's never been the same since. He is going on 88 so I'm sure that didn't help. Anyway, the moral of the story is, always pay attention to any new symptoms when taking a new medication!!!

 

[thrillathahunt]

I have always been in pretty good health and I have never liked taking any medication, not even pain relievers. When I get through with all of these AB's they gave me it will be the most pills I have taken in succession in my life.