http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110822092246.htm

“Together with recent findings, these results strongly suggest that winter airway infections such as influenza A (including H1N1), and/or Streptococcus pyogenes are triggers for narcolepsy,” Mignot, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and his colleagues wrote in the paper.

Reminds me of PANDAS and strep.

http://westsuffolkpsych.homestead.com/Pandas.html

Is there evidence floating around that OCD may be caused by strep? I have no doubt it’s something like that but I didn’t know one way or the other if there was evidence yet.

The staphyloccus aureus bug is just one of many strains of staph infections; if a wound/cut/abrasion is just superficial and is cleaned out you’ve likely nothing to worry about.

Things like blisters, and cuts tend to go deeper than a mere abrasion and it’s when the bug enters a deeper wound that it can spread IF it isn’t tended to with care.

Of course, diabetics don’t heal as well as others so they are more at risk. When high school kids get a wound, they tend not to pay much attention to it until infection has taken hold. By then, the germ has gone more deeply into the skin, and that offers the risk that it will not remain a local infection. It spreads; there is often swelling and a tell-tale red line from the wound leading toward the heart, and that speaks of it entering the circulatory system which is when the germ can spread throughout the body, leading to big trouble no matter the age of the patient.

The s. aureaus itself only became hard to get rid of when antibiotics were often used for all kinds of things, and it learned to evolve to avoid being killed off.

So, just make sure you don’t share things like towels with others, and just be sure to look for any openings in your skin and then cleanse the area often.

In gyms, I’d use Clorox wipes to wipe off handle bars of exercise bikes and things of that nature. And, were I to use a gym, I’d wait to shower at home rather than at the gym. That’s just me.

Just about any germ is capable of doing what SA has done. In fact, there is one now that is being spread in hospitals through sheets, tubes, etc. It causes diahrrea, and can kill rather quickly. So, hospitals have begun the same regimen to combat it as they instituted with MRSA. The good news is that in hospitals MRSA has been on the decline from the procedural practices put in place.

Wow. You were put through the wringer. Glad you are on the mend.
Vanco? Yep. Very familiar with it. Drug of last resort–thank God they have it, but wonder how much longer it will work on the superbug and the other superbugs out there.

Mary,

MRSA (methylin resistant staphylococcus aureus) is a very common, everyday germ. You can come into contact with it simply going about your day to day business. My sister probably got it off her carpet or kitchen floor. Her blister left her skin open to infection.

It’s important to always take care to treat cuts and open wounds with hot water, soap, then antibacterial ointments.

Some places, like locker rooms in schools and gym, are places where the germ is passed from one person who might have it to another (towels, etc.)

It can lie dormant in one’s lungs, but it rarely is passed from a sneeze or cough unless the person who in on the receiving end has a compromised immune system.

Bottom line, MRSA is everywhere in your house and elsewhere. It used to be a fairly benign germ but it evolved to virulence when doctors overprescribed antibiotics. These bugs know how to survive.

I like reading Paul Ewald because he writes about how to get bugs to evolve to benignity.