Beach Runner
beats on hood
I'm sure you've seen the story about the grad student infected with a flesh-eating bacteria. http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/1...zip-line-fall/comment-page-4/#comment-1178611
CNN said these bacteria come from water. Killer bacteria don't just come from water. A few years ago my husband was diagnosed with a coagulase-negative staph infection (not the usual staphylococcus aureus) and was put on IV antibiotics for 6 weeks. After 6 weeks he tested negative for staph, so they took him off the antibiotics. During these 6 weeks he started having severe back pain. He went to an orthopaedic doctor. The doctor ran many tests and couldn't determine the cause of the pain. This went on for a couple of months. The pain got so bad that we literally had to call 911 to help hubby get out of bed. I got desperate and just happened to google "staph" and "back pain." I got a hit on the first page -- the staph had settled into his back! We called the doctor and told him that I had found a diagnosis. He said they didn't treat infectious diseases and sent us to an orthopaedic surgeon at Emory. They did an MRI (one had been done by the other doctor) and saw infection in a disk in his back. The doctor said that my husband needed surgery immediately before the infection got bigger, got into his bloodstream (staph likes to hide in low-bloodflow areas like a disk), and went to the rest of his body. The surgeon had to remove a rib, construct a new disk, clean out the staph and the damage done to the adjacent vertebrae, then build a titanium cage around the disk and vertebrae. Another doctor on the team was an infectious disease specialist from the CDC. She asked if my husband had any cuts prior to the staph infection months prior. Hubby remembered getting a bad cut on his calf while pruning saw palmettos at the beach. She said that's probably how the staph entered his body.
She advised us that anything anyone gets a cut or even a hangnail, they should clean it, put antibacterial cream on it, and keep it covered until it heals. She said that potentially life-threatening bacteria are everywhere (even on everyone's skin).
BTW my husband was on IV antibiotics for two months after the surgery. The doctor from the CDC put him on oral antibiotics for the rest of his life because she said that the staph could still be hiding in a low-bloodflow area.
So, medicate and cover those cuts, no matter how small!
CNN said these bacteria come from water. Killer bacteria don't just come from water. A few years ago my husband was diagnosed with a coagulase-negative staph infection (not the usual staphylococcus aureus) and was put on IV antibiotics for 6 weeks. After 6 weeks he tested negative for staph, so they took him off the antibiotics. During these 6 weeks he started having severe back pain. He went to an orthopaedic doctor. The doctor ran many tests and couldn't determine the cause of the pain. This went on for a couple of months. The pain got so bad that we literally had to call 911 to help hubby get out of bed. I got desperate and just happened to google "staph" and "back pain." I got a hit on the first page -- the staph had settled into his back! We called the doctor and told him that I had found a diagnosis. He said they didn't treat infectious diseases and sent us to an orthopaedic surgeon at Emory. They did an MRI (one had been done by the other doctor) and saw infection in a disk in his back. The doctor said that my husband needed surgery immediately before the infection got bigger, got into his bloodstream (staph likes to hide in low-bloodflow areas like a disk), and went to the rest of his body. The surgeon had to remove a rib, construct a new disk, clean out the staph and the damage done to the adjacent vertebrae, then build a titanium cage around the disk and vertebrae. Another doctor on the team was an infectious disease specialist from the CDC. She asked if my husband had any cuts prior to the staph infection months prior. Hubby remembered getting a bad cut on his calf while pruning saw palmettos at the beach. She said that's probably how the staph entered his body.
She advised us that anything anyone gets a cut or even a hangnail, they should clean it, put antibacterial cream on it, and keep it covered until it heals. She said that potentially life-threatening bacteria are everywhere (even on everyone's skin).
BTW my husband was on IV antibiotics for two months after the surgery. The doctor from the CDC put him on oral antibiotics for the rest of his life because she said that the staph could still be hiding in a low-bloodflow area.
So, medicate and cover those cuts, no matter how small!