MRSA Notes

My dear friend and the moderator of our MRSA forum, Peg McQueary, has her incredible story featured tonight on Nightline (11:35pm ABC).  I can’t begin to tell you how much Peg has touched my heart in the almost 3 years now that I have known her.   My husband can testify that I have spent many a night crying and concerned about Peg’s health and her infection that just won’t die.  I don’t know how she does it – and no doubt it is partially with the strength of her wonderful husband and family.  Peg, I can safely say, is right up there with the strongest people out there I have ever been fortunate enough to know.  Probably one of the strongest on the planet if the truth be known.

Really, don’t miss Peg’s story.  She really is a miracle walking on Earth. 

Catch the online version here and be sure and offer Peg your support in the comments.  She is devoted to helping support others going through this battle and she deserves yours too.

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A biomedical scientist stole bacteria from the hospital where she worked in order to end her life by giving herself septicaemia, it emerged today.Jennifer Bainbridge removed the bacteria – found in MRSA and E coli germs – from North Tyneside general hospital, a health regulator panel heard last week.The 28-year-old said she planned to use the germs to kill herself when she “hit rock bottom” after suffering months of depression.

Hospital scientist stole bacteria to kill herself, panel told | UK news | guardian.co.uk

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A student at Sandusky Middle School has been diagnosed with a confirmed case of MRSA, school officials were notified Friday.The parent of the student with the antibiotic-resistant infection – methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureaus – alerted school administrators Friday. School officials then contacted the health department.Lynchburg City Schools spokeswoman Treney Tweedy said after-school activities were canceled Friday so the school could be cleaned and disinfected.

Middle School Cleans Up After MRSA Case | WSLS 10

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Current statistics show that there are an estimated 13 million injection drug users worldwide. Past studies indicate that nasal or skin colonization with Staphylococcus aureus occurs at a higher rate in people who abuse drugs and in addition poses an increased risk of subsequent infections in injection drug users.

Higher Rates Of MRSA Among Drug Users Than Six Years Ago

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I guess the whole world isn’t in to Project Runway like I am – but I have just read some spoilers for the episode coming up here in 15 minutes, and Ill be darned if one of the most lovable contenders doesn’t have MRSA. It’s amazing how my two greatest interests, beauty and MRSA, seem to collide so often. Jack was definitely an early on favorite to win, but I am sure he is going to be bowing out tonight, as there is no way the rigors of competition is going to mesh well with his MRSA, and he is also HIV+, which is a dangerous combination. HIV attacks your immune system, and MRSA thrives on weakened immunity. I have known more than a few people with both, and without great care, MRSA can really get the best of you. Diabetes and other illnesses that weaken your body will affect MRSA the same way. Best wishes to Jack – I hope and pray he remained on top of his infection and it didn’t give him too terrible of a time. He has been all over the gossip papers of late, and he looks great, so I think that hopefully all is well with him. But I will keep him in my prayers just like I do every one of you I speak to and read about your battle.

And if you find your way here looking for more info about MRSA, please don’t hesitate to join us at the MRSA forum, at MRSA Resources, and if you would like to read what we went through, you can read Marshall’s story. Take care of yourselves!

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I have been contacted by a reporter doing a story on MRSA in Texas athletes:

I’ve contacted several high school and college athletic trainers about MRSA and they told me it wasn’t a problem, they’d neither seen nor heard of any athletes being infected, and were just telling kids to wash their hands more often. This response reminds me of the things emergency personnel tend to say before they get hit by their first hurricane.

It’s at odd with the findings of a 2005 study in one of the Texas’ 10 high school athletic regions, which reported 36 confirmed MRSA cases among high school athletes, with 31 of those in football players. It’s also at odds with the more serious attitude now being taken toward MRSA by the National Football League.

Can you please help me find an MRSA patient in Texas to help me humanize this story and bring home the horror of this disease. They must be a football player, or former football player who contacted the bug as a result of playing on the team. From what I’ve read, rug rash caused by artificial playing surfaces provides the bug with a perfect entryway from the warm, moist surfaces found in team locker-rooms.

I am also seeking secondary interviews with healthcare professionals willing to be up front about the speed with which MRSA is spreading.

If you will leave a comment here, and be sure to include a valid email address, I will see that the information gets to the right person. Thanks for your help!

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These are courtesy of my dear friends at RID:

1. Encourage students to clean their hands frequently

2. Parents, tuck a small container of hand sanitizer in your child’s book bag, if your child is mature enough to use it properly.

3. Educators, install dispensers of hand-sanitizer inside each classroom. Students should not have to get a hall pass and leave the classroom to clean their hands.

4. Warn students not to share gym clothes, towels, and other personal items. MRSA bacteria can live on fabrics and hard surfaces for up to ninety days.

5. Warns students against sharing bars of soap. Use pump dispensers only.

6. Educators, ensure that all shared sports equipment (wrestling mats, baseball gloves, gymnastics equipment) and locker room facilities such as benches are cleaned with detergents, which must remain on the surfaces for at least three minutes. Quickly spraying and wiping is not effective.

7. Educators, makes sure that when a student gets a cut or abrasion on the playground or in class, it is cleaned immediately by someone whose hands are also clean! Classrooms should have a first-aid kit or ready access to the help of a school nurse.

8. School authorities should investigate the anti-microbial coatings available for use on sports equipment and other high-touch surfaces, and washable keyboards for computers.

9. School authorities should periodically have surfaces in the gym and classrooms cultured, to know the extent of MRSA contamination.

10. Athletes, gym teachers, and coaches should be given extra awareness tools to reduce their heightened risk of exposure to MRSA.

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I get email from different people nearly every day with questions, comments and stories of their individual MRSA experiences, and have since beginning MRSA Resources nearly 3 years ago. This is a story I received a couple of weeks ago:

Christina,

I’m a 37 year old male, I have a wife and two boys, 15 and 11.

I knew nothing about CA-MRSA before it introduced me
to itself a month and a half ago, now I know about as
much as i really possibly care to. I DO however want
to inform as many people as I possibly can. Of course
my family and friends know about it now too.

I had a few boils within the past year, I had one
lanced on my bottom which got kind of nasty. About two
months ago I had gotten poison ivy, which was almost
gone. I had a small scabby part left on my left foot
and next to it a small pimple was forming. Well, that
little pimple on my foot had gotten worse after a few
days so I went to the local clinic on a Friday and had
gotten some antibiotics and went home. I came in the
next day (Sat.) and it was Much worse – like I had
elephantitis of the foot. They gave me a double dose
of antibiotic shots and sent me home. I came in on
Monday saw a doc and he wanted me to go to a surgeon
upstairs but none were available so he lanced my foot
open himself (this was an extremely painful
experience), He didn’t have a culture done either.

I came back the next day and it still looked terrible.
I had never been running a fever so they weren’t
thinking it was a staff infection. He scheduled me to
see a local surgeon the next day, I came, a doctor
came in, looked at my foot and left within seconds
without saying a word and came back with another
surgeon. He said “That must hurt A LOT”. They made
arrangements for me to go to a Hospital in Duluth
immediately.

I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday and had my
first surgery the next day to open and clean/irrigate
my foot. Wound vacs where on my foot at this point for
the next two weeks, one week with a portable vac at
home.

Interestingly enough my wife had picked up a
Reader’s Digest when she came to see me at the
hospital the first day and there was an article about
Super Bug’s. I didn’t think much of it at the time
but after I read it I thought, that sounds EXACTLY
like what I have. Sure enough this was about the time
I found out I had CA-MRSA.

Another surgery was performed two days later, more
irrigation, closed one incision. Then three days later
(the day after Labor Day) a skin graft was done where
the lance was made the previous week. A portion of
dead tissue had to be removed.

I had missed work for a month and I’m now getting
back and moving around much better nearly two months
later but still have a ways to go.

This was just an overview of the experience I went
through. The physical and emotional toll it took on me
and my family and more was incredible. I want to do as
much as I can to keep as many people become aware and
hopefully free of this fatal bug.

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Sadly, the catalyst for letting this MRSA problem out of the closet was the death of a Staunton River High School (VA) student, Ashton Bonds. My heart goes out to Ashton’s family.

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…Of those people trying to keep this problem (maybe I can safely say epidemic now??) swept under the rug. It was only a matter of time. If the flurry of traffic and comments here at MRSA Notes and over at MRSA Resources as well is any indication, along with the slurry of emails I have received about MRSA this week, it is officially out of the darkness and into the light. Hallelujah!

I can’t even begin to name all of the media outlets who have run this story this week, but no doubt you have seen it. You could really hardly have missed it. Its been on every morning, afternoon and evening news program there is, and has been on the front page of every newspaper across the country, and a darned big lot of them worldwide. Just because I am a Texan, here is the article from this mornings Dallas Morning News referencing the study that has caused so much uproar:

In the new study, Dr. Fridkin and his colleagues analyzed data collected in Connecticut, Georgia, California, Colorado, Oregon, New York, Tennessee, Minnesota and Maryland, identifying 5,287 cases of invasive MRSA infection and 988 deaths in 2005. Based on the findings, the researchers calculated that MRSA was striking 31 out of every 100,000 Americans, which translates into 94,360 cases and 18,650 deaths nationwide. In comparison, the AIDS virus killed about 12,500 Americans in 2005.

“This indicates these life-threatening MRSA infections are much more common than we had thought,” Dr. Fridkin said.

In fact, the estimates make MRSA much more common than flesh-eating strep infections, bacterial pneumonia and meningitis combined, Dr. Bancroft noted.

“These are some of the most dreaded invasive bacterial diseases out there,” Dr. Bancroft said. “This is clearly a very big deal.”

Clearly, it is. Why do I feel a little vindicated? Anyway, for all of us who work so hard behind the scenes, doing our best to help people who have been part of the sweeping under the rug, it is vindication. There is a problem, a huge and growing problem, and maybe, JUST MAYBE, the country will begin to pay attention to it now. It makes me so sad to know (and have personal knowledge of so many of them myself) all of these people who have died, whose children have died, who have lost their livelihood and joie d’vivre to MRSA. And it makes me more and more thankful to still have my beloved husband here with me.

If you are new to my MRSA websites, you have found MRSA Notes, the news site, you might want to check out MRSA Resources – we have a forum, and if you look around, there is a blazing hot community of people talking in the comments of almost every section on the site. My husbands MRSA story is at MRSAStory.com, and the Superbug Wiki is available too – please feel free to participate in that community project and help others find what they are looking for. And welcome, and best wishes for good health to you all!

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