Check out this news item at msnbc.com about a bug that once was found mostly in hospitals and now is widespread in our community. In the past 1-2 months I have found this bacteria in at least 4 people with skin infections who had not been in any hospital recently. Two people with brown recluse spider bites had this bug in their spider bites earlier in June. So you need to know about this bacteria because it is becoming much more common outside of hospitals. If you have a skin abscess that is not healing quickly ask your doctor about doing a culture for MRSA. This common bacteria has become resistant to all forms of penicillin, including the commonly used Amoxil™, Augmentin™, and Keflex™. Cipro™ and Levaquin™ also do not work against it. It still can be killed often with some very old antibiotics which we rarely use first-line, namely clindamycin and Bactrim™. In the worse cases, it requires very expensive and prolonged treatment with either IV vancomycin or oral Zyvox™. Culturing and determining antibiotic sensitivity is the best way to identify the bacteria and then pick an effective antibiotic treatment.
MSNBC news story link - MRSA infections spreading
drBob
Check out this news item at msnbc.com about a bug that once was found mostly in hospitals and now is widespread in our community. In the past 1-2 months I have found this bacteria in at least 4 people with skin infections who had not been in any hospital recently. Two people with brown recluse spider bites had this bug in their spider bites earlier in June. So you need to know about this bacteria because it is becoming much more common outside of hospitals. If you have a skin abscess that is not healing quickly ask your doctor about doing a culture for MRSA. This common bacteria has become resistant to all forms of penicillin, including the commonly used Amoxil™, Augmentin™, and Keflex™. Cipro™ and Levaquin™ also do not work against it. It still can be killed often with some very old antibiotics which we rarely use first-line, namely clindamycin and Bactrim™. In the worse cases, it requires very expensive and prolonged treatment with either IV vancomycin or oral Zyvox™. Culturing and determining antibiotic sensitivity is the best way to identify the bacteria and then pick an effective antibiotic treatment.
MSNBC news story link - MRSA infections spreading
drBob