Catherine Lafon

Special Corespondent  for

Diabetic-Diet-Secrets.com

About 4 weeks ago my husband came home with a nasty looking spider bite on his arm.

Then a week later I developed what I thought was a boil, then after it turned a very dark purple and had a fever in it plus hit my limp node I went into the doctor,

She told the nurse to culture the fluid and told me sweetie you have MRSA.

"Whats that", I asked.

We talked for about 30 Min's during the conversation she told me 8 out of 10 doctors will not realize what there dealing with till about the 3rd outbreak.

It looks like a really nasty spider bite and many think that's all it is, a non diabetic or a non person with a compromised immune system it will heal fast but then they will have another out break and toss it up to another bite.

It is highly contagious and the whole family must be treated for it at the same time.

And you must bleach everything you can plus be-careful handling the infected clothing, do not drink from the same glass, or eat from the same dishes.

Wear rubber gloves when doing laundry.

Someone at my husbands job was infected came to work and then he brought it home.

What is MRSA?

Understanding MRSA (Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus)

Being a diabetic we are at a higher risk reason being if the abscess blows inward it can go into the bone and cause your limb to have to be amputated, it can hit your heart and kill you, in the lungs it can cause pneumonia and  you can be a carrier and not know your bringing it to others.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium that causes infections in different parts of the body. It's tougher to treat than most strains of staphylococcus aureus -- or staph -- because it's resistant to some commonly used antibiotics.

The symptoms of MRSA depend on where you're infected. Most often, it causes mild infections on the skin, causing pimples or boils. But it can also cause more serious skin infections or infect surgical wounds, the bloodstream, the lungs, or the urinary tract.

aren't serious, some can be life-threatening. Many public health experts are alarmed by the spread of tough strains of MRSA. Because it's hard to treat, MRSA is sometimes called a "super bug."

People who are ill or have a compromised immune system have a higher risk of getting MRSA. If you have a condition that lowers your immunity, call your doctor right away if you think that you might have an infection.

What causes it?

Garden-variety staph are common bacteria that can live on our bodies. Plenty of healthy people carry staph without being infected by it. In fact, 25-30% of us have staph bacteria in our noses.

But staph can be a problem if it manages to get into the body, often through a cut. Once there, it can cause an infection. Staph is one of the most common causes of skin infections in the U.S. Usually, these are minor and don't need special treatment. Less often, staph can cause serious problems like infected wounds or pneumonia.

Staph can usually be treated with antibiotics. But over the decades, some strains of staph -- like MRSA -- have become resistant to antibiotics that once destroyed it. MRSA was first discovered in 1961. It's now immune to methicillin, amoxicillin, penicillin, oxacillin, and many other antibiotics.

While some antibiotics still work, MRSA is constantly adapting. Researchers developing new antibiotics are having a tough time keeping up.

Who gets MRSA?

MRSA is spread by contact. So you could get MRSA by touching another person who has it on the skin. Or you could get it by touching objects that have the bacteria on them. MRSA is carried, or "colonized," by about 1% of the population, although most of them aren't infected.

Infections are most common among people who have weak immune systems and are living in hospitals, nursing homes, and other heath care centers. Infections can appear around surgical wounds or invasive devices, like catheters or implanted feeding tubes. Rates of infection in hospitals, especially intensive care units, are rising throughout the world. In U.S. hospitals, MRSA causes up to 40%-50% of staph infections.

Community-Associated MRSA (CA-MRSA)

But MRSA is also showing up in healthy people who have not been living in the hospital. This type of MRSA is called community-associated MRSA, or CA-MRSA. The CDC reports that in 2003, 12% of people with MRSA infections had CA-MRSA.

Studies have shown that rates of CA-MRSA infection are growing fast. One study of children in south Texas found that cases of CA-MRSA had a 14-fold increase between 1999 and 2001.

CA-MRSA skin infections have been identified among certain populations that share close quarters or experience more skin-to-skin contact. Examples are team athletes, military recruits, and prisoners. However, more and more CA-MRSA infections are being seen in the general community as well, especially in certain geographic regions.

It's also infecting much younger people. In a study of Minnesotans published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the average age of people with MRSA in a hospital or healthcare facility was 68. But the average age of a person with CA-MRSA was only 23.

Researchers Rid Diabetic Patients Of MRSA By Treating Their Foot Ulcers With Maggots

Main Category: Diabetes
Also Included In: Biology / Biochemistry;  MRSA / Drug Resistance
Article Date: 05 May 2007 - 2:00 PDT

University of Manchester researchers are ridding diabetic patients of the superbug MRSA - by treating their foot ulcers with maggots.

Professor Andrew Boulton and his team used green bottle fly larvae to treat 13 diabetic patients whose foot ulcers were contaminated with MRSA and found all but one were cured within a mean period of three weeks, much quicker than the 28-week duration for the conventional treatment.

Professor Boulton, who published the results in the journal Diabetes Care, has now been awarded a £98,000 grant by Diabetes UK to carry out a randomized controlled trial to compare this treatment with two others.

"Maggots are the world's smallest surgeons. In fact they are better than surgeons - they are much cheaper and work 24 hours a day," Professor Boulton jokingly said.

"They have been used since the Napoleonic Wars and in the American Civil War they found that those who survived were the ones with maggots in their wounds: they kept them clean. They remove the dead tissue and bacteria, leaving the healthy tissue to heal.

"Still, we were very surprised to see such a good result for MRSA. There is no reason this cannot be applied to many other areas of the body, except perhaps a large abdominal wound."

Professor Boulton and his team, including senior nurse Ann Knowles, have used maggots to treat diabetic foot ulcers of patients attending the Manchester Diabetes Centre and foot clinics, as well as in in-patients at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, for ten years. More recently they found that many of their patients were suffering from MRSA-contaminated foot ulcers, with the rate doubling in a three year period, possibly due to overuse of antibiotics and the selection of broad rather than narrow-spectrum antibacterial agents. This led to their first study, funded by Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust (CMMC) Chairman's Prize Award.

They treated 13 patients, aged 18-80 years with chronic foot ulcers that had suffered loss of feeling and reduced blood supply, with sterile free-range larvae of the green bottle fly Lucilia Sericata. They applied the larvae between two and eight times, depending on the size of the ulcer, for four days at a time, with pressure relieving dressings to protect them. No topical antimicrobial agents or growth factors were used on the study ulcer.

All but one of the patients was cleared of the superbug. During the treatment period, no adverse reactions were reported and there was a reduction in sloughy necrotic tissue and an increase in healthy, growing tissue on removal of the last larval application.

In their second study, he and his team will compare larval treatment with antibacterial silver dressings and the biogun treatment, which uses ionized air to create superoxide radicals and eradicate bacteria.

Professor Boulton said: "This is very exciting. We have demonstrated for the first time the potential of larval therapy to eliminate MRSA infection of diabetic foot ulcers. If confirmed in a randomized controlled trial, larval treatment would offer the first non-invasive and risk-free treatment of this increasing problem and a safe and cost-effective treatment in contrast to the expensive and potentially toxic antibiotic remedies."

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Article reposted from  Medical News Today from original press release.
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The paper 'Larval Therapy: A Novel Treatment in Eliminating Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus From Diabetic Foot Ulcers' is in Diabetes Care, Volume 30, Number 2, February 2007.

Professor Andrew Boulton leads the Manchester DIALEX (Diabetes Lower Extremity Research Group), which has been actively researching clinical aspects of diabetic foot disease over the last 15 years. Over 200 peer reviewed research articles have been published as a result of research in this group. His clinical research group in Diabetic Nephropathy, in collaboration with Professor Gokal, has been active in researching clinical aspects of the management of diabetic nephropathy at all stages. He is a member of the Institute of Health Sciences Diabetes and Obesity Research Network and has been Chairman of Postgraduate Education for the European Diabetes Association and Honorary Secretary / Programme Chair for the EASD in the last 5 years. He also has strong links with American centres of research. The University of Manchester School of Medicine is one of the largest in the country, with almost 2000 undergraduates, 700 postgraduates and 1300 staff. The University's four teaching hospitals, together with affiliated hospitals and community practices across the North West, provide excellent facilities for clinical training and research. The School is a major contributor to the University's research profile and external grant income, with annual expenditure on research amounting to £30-35 million. This funding is obtained from research councils, medical charities, the health services and industry. The School was rated 5 in both hospital-based and community-based clinical subjects in the last RAE.

The Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust (CMMC) has a strong commitment to research. Excellent facilities and researchers allow for world-class research in diverse areas such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, genetics and human development. The Trust has 14 major programmes of research, 675 ongoing research projects (at 2005/06) and 600 peer reviewed publications per year. Long-standing and successful partnerships with The University of Manchester and other collaborators are rapidly establishing Manchester as a centre of research excellence.

Diabetes UK is the largest charity in the UK devoted to the care and treatment of people with diabetes in order to improve the quality of life for people with the condition. It is one of the largest funders of diabetes research in the UK - investing £6M to develop better treatment, prevent diabetes and to find a cure.

Contact: Mikaela Sitford
University of Manchester

Yesterday I went back in for my 3 week check to be sure we were over it found out there seeing about 2 to 7 people a day with this, it is a serious outbreak and it is hitting a lot of areas across the united states.

 So if you get a spider bite or someone in your family or co worker please have it checked ask to have a culture done for MRSA.

Back in the 50s the hospitals stopped using bleach, it is the only know way to stop staph, Clorox mulit surface bleach works well in the home.

Hand santizers will not stop it, there anti bacterial, try to find the santizer towlets then wash your hands if your out about town.

Plus carry wipes to work.

Catherine