Staph Infections Increasing

drewpropsdrewprops
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Are there any medical folks in here who can give inside insight about why Staph infection might be running rampant in modern hospitals? I know more and more people who have died and are dying because of this...it's epidemic in the United States and it's a shame that modern healthcare is falling prey to bacterial infections.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    i knew a japanese lady who's entire career has been working to prevent the spread of bacteria in hospitals.



    my understanding is that the staph in hospitals is getting extremely drug resistant, so when you do catch it, you can't kill it off with normal antibiotics. since people in the hospital are both sick, and often cut open, their immune systems are weak and the staph has a point of entry.



    not sure how you'd get rid of it short of clearning the building out and doing some kind of anti-staph bomb. (like a bug bomb)
  • Reply 2 of 14
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    My hospital is always finding new says to fight it. I don't know if has been increasing over the past several years. The best prevention is to keep things clean. It's easy to kill outside the body. An interesting example is that a couple of years ago they band the use of press-on nails for people that work with blood.
  • Reply 3 of 14
    drewpropsdrewprops Posts: 2,321member
    Yeah, the drug-resistant staph is scary stuff. I really honestly do believe that there's been a decline in discipline (in regard to cleanliness) in some hospitals over the last fifteen years. The banning of press-on nails is an interesting signal that SOME hospitals are beginning to track down the "little things" that can import the bugs into areas that put patients at high-risk. I wonder if there's been a special on this on NOVA or Frontline. I'll bet there has. If not, they need to stick their noses into this problem....raise the overall public awareness to the level where healthy people realize the risks.
  • Reply 4 of 14
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Staph infection increase, with the lack of cleaness, and the number of open doors. By open doors i mean each device entering in the organism, perfusion, urinar probe, artificial respiration, wounds ...

    Typically it's the intensive care unit : weak people with plenty of open doors.



    For the record one young woman died from a nose piercing. She died of an endocarditis after a piercing of the nose. She has stapylococcus aureus in her nose, and the piercing procedure, allow the staph to enter the organism and to infect the heart.
  • Reply 5 of 14
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    Are Staph infections really increasing? Isn't there a similar proportional increase in people going into hospitals now with babyboomers aging? I mean, say, 1:100 and 5:500 is not an increase...
  • Reply 6 of 14
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    I would think that per patient they would be going down considering so many procedures are out patient these days.
  • Reply 7 of 14
    billybobskybillybobsky Posts: 1,914member
    Staph infections are probably increasing due to the age of the hospitals.
  • Reply 8 of 14
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    That would be easy to prove or disprove. Any studies?
  • Reply 9 of 14
    billybobskybillybobsky Posts: 1,914member
    ?
  • Reply 10 of 14
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Uh oh.



    A little googling suggests that the new problem is anitbiotic resistant staph infections out in the wild.



    Methicillin-resistant staph aureus, or MRSA is of concern to health care professionals because it is showing up in people with no obvious links to hospitals or nursing homes, where it's been around for a while. (Sorry about no links, I'm in a hurry).



    Didn't this used to be one the doomsday scenarios that got bandied about? The idea that overuse of anitbiotics would eventually lead to the emergence of "super bugs" that would lay us to waste while pharmocology stood helplessly by?
  • Reply 11 of 14
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    yes. and it has begun.



    bow to your new microscopic overlords.
  • Reply 12 of 14
    gspottergspotter Posts: 342member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by addabox

    Methicillin-resistant staph aureus, or MRSA is of concern to health care professionals because it is showing up in people with no obvious links to hospitals or nursing homes, where it's been around for a while. (Sorry about no links, I'm in a hurry).



    I had an infected bursa last summer. For many weeks I visited the hospital about every two days to get my bandage changed. After some time, they found MRSA. After that, they always treated me in a separate room from the normal ambulance, used disposable clothes ec. But I don't know how long I had MRSA before they found it but afaik, they get the results of the swab one or two days later. As they didn't do a swab every time I was there, I probably had MRSA some days before it was found. I assume that's also the way I got it.
  • Reply 13 of 14
    podmatepodmate Posts: 183member
    I spent 7 years as a NeoNatal Respiratory Therapist and my wife is a Nurse. So, I know something about staph.



    From everything that I read it would appear that super resistant staph infections are mostly caused by misuse of antibiotics. Stuff like a doctor giving out scripts for antibiotics for a cold (no antibiotic in the world can kill a virus) and someone NOT finishing their run of antibiotics are prime examples of why we have so many antibiotic resistant organisms.

    A prime example is the huge increase of resistant TB in Eastern Europe that was caused by people not taking the full run of their TB meds. Now we have TB that is resistant to virtually everything.



    Other causes are evolution (the bacteria will grow resistant over time regardless) and the drug companies themselves. For many years the drug companies severely cut back on antibiotic research and have only recently started to make it a priority.
  • Reply 14 of 14
    podmatepodmate Posts: 183member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by addabox

    Uh oh.



    A little googling suggests that the new problem is anitbiotic resistant staph infections out in the wild.



    Methicillin-resistant staph aureus, or MRSA is of concern to health care professionals because it is showing up in people with no obvious links to hospitals or nursing homes, where it's been around for a while. (Sorry about no links, I'm in a hurry).



    Didn't this used to be one the doomsday scenarios that got bandied about? The idea that overuse of anitbiotics would eventually lead to the emergence of "super bugs" that would lay us to waste while pharmocology stood helplessly by?



    You mention MRSA (which is pretty scary), but the real scary crap is VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci). Soon we will have VRS (Vancomycin-Resistant Staphylococcus) which will make MRSA look like a minor infection.



    Yeah, this crap scares me. I almost died from a massive Klebsiella pneumonia that was fairly resistant to the usualy drugs. Fortunately, the doctor knew that I was an ex-respiratory therapist and just pulled out the biggest gun he had. At the time I was 32 with no risk factors for Klebsiella pneumonia. It really freaked out my doctors.
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