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Pretty much... Also make sure to use a good anti-bacterial soap ASAP after completing your training -if you can shower at your gym its better (remember the shower shoes to not pick up another nasty.)

Also, make sure your coach or instructor is making sure the mats are cleaned with bleach and that everybody has good hygiene standards -showered, trimmed nails, a clean gi, etc. If any of that is a problem, talk to him in private and ask him to bring it up and crack down.

I got a terrible staph infection my last year at The Citadel while training for the Ranger Challenge, and I spent about 6 weeks taking different antibiotics to get rid of it. I had to have several of them opened out and cleaned out several times a week. It was a terrible experience that is all too common amongst athletes and in military environments. It was scary, as my body didn’t seem to be responding to the drugs, and I had a roommate whose neighbor had died of staph and another Citadel buddy whose Dad lost an eye from a staph infection. It is nothing to fool around with.

People thinking that staph is a purely “homosexual disease” don’t know what they are talking about. As for the gay community -what diseases and sicknesses DONT they have running rampant?! But more people have picked up staph in hospitals (especially Canadian)or in athletics than in any San Fransicko bathhouse.