Flesh-eating germ kills woman in three days

MSNBC ^ | March 9, 2006 | AP

[ahayes]

Yes, I refuse to buy antibacterial soap.

I'll use isopropanol based cleaners sometimes because those nuke everything. Bacteria don't really have a good way to build up resistance to alcohols.

[hope]

It was indeed a suprise. He was oreintal, that's the only reason I can think of since he is not naturopathic. So, I pushed the use of a good acidopholis supplement and he shrugged that off. I think it's extremely important with antibiotic use.
I have also heard that manuka honey topically will ward off staph. My son had acne problems that we are treating with it and I am amazed at how much it has cleared up.

[riri]

Another reason to avoid old people........

Why just old people? Hell, people in general...(:

[hope]

That's interesting...what cleaners would have that. Or would just a bottle of alcohol do it...I use white vinegar straight which is a great disinfectant straight. Just the smell kills you, if you know what I mean.

[Centurion2000]

That's a relief. Olive oil is the only thing I cook with.

[hope]

Good for you! I love cooking with it also. The best defense against bacterial and viral is in the tincture form though and you don't cook with it...it's very highly concentrated from the olive leaf. This is the medicinal part of it.

[hellinahandcart]

How old is your daughter?

Get her to a good periodontist and have them do a culture. I know from painful experience that if these bacteria are below your gums, they ain't going away without a serious intervention, and while they're not usually flesh-eating bacteria, they can cause recurring resistant infections and bone loss.

I avoided going because of the cost involved (most insurance plans cover NO perio work at all). Well, because I put it off for too long, I've now had to shell out money for bone grafts on top of shelling out for the gum surgery. Don't be like me!

[vetvetdoug]

I worked on a research project 25 years ago that discovered a bacteria, Pseudomas putida, that ate phenol for a substrate.

[ahayes]

Yeah, rubbing alcohol would work (I think the standard concentration is ~70% isopropanol). It's also in a variety of cleaners, I think Windex and Lysol both usually contain isopropanol. In cell culture labs 70% ethanol is the standard disinfectant, so vodka would work in a pinch. :-D Bleach is another good one--absolutely no way to resist that! I'd say bleach is the gold standard. There's also hydrogen peroxide, though.

I'm sure vinegar works too for many bacteria, it's acidic.

I try not to go into anti-germ overkill, but these are good if you get raw meat on a countertop or need to clean up cat excrement (Yippee!)

[unlearner]

"Where does this come from? How could this just be floating around."

I think it may most commonly show up as the result of powerful antibiotics. Our bodies are home to bacteria that ordinarily will not harm us, but can become dangerous due to mutations when exposed to antibiotics.

For example, some common skin rashes (e.g. impetigo) might be treated with prescription antibiotics. The patient may think they are smarter than the doctor and decide use it in a way not prescribed. Or perhaps treat an area around the mouth or nose and get some inside. (This may not result in a superbug, but it will probably do more harm than good. Any misuse of antibiotics can be dangerous, especially the more powerful ones.)

The average person is not aware that some antibiotics can be very dangerous by facilitating mutations which can be deadly.

Superbugs also develop when other resistant strains share their DNA. This is one reason they often come from hospitals. They (hospital acquired infections) cause over 100,000 deaths in the USA each year.

[IamConservative]

My wife gets annoyed when I say I can self-treat any injury with Tylenol and duct tape.

Sounds like my first aid kit! I do prefer Advil to Tylenol, and, I lay gauze under my duck tape unless I need to excavate some body hair.

[ahayes]

OW!!

What about the hunting knife in case you need to remove your appendix or amputate a finger? That's a critical item. And the bottle of vodka to both steel your nerves before the operation and disinfect the surgery site.

[hope]

She's 19. And she cannot afford it... so guess who gets the honors. She was goofing off with a friend and fell and broke her front tooth down to the nerve...They did a root canal and it's not been quite right since. We are guessing that's the cause of the staph since it started with irritation in that area and then spread to her finger.

[hope]

Interesting. Lysol in the spray can though, right? Lysol use to have a great disenfectan product..It was not pleasant to smell though...It came in a brown bottle and I have looked high and low without any luck.

[oldoverholt]

FY

[Vinnie]

Everyone knows the link between strep and rheumatic heart disease, damaging the heart valves.
The line of thinking now is that gum bacteria may be linked to heart blood vessel plaques also.
( since I've had heart disease, I take a bolus of an antibiotic before any dental work, even a cleaning. The dentist won't touch me if I don't)

So get that checked out!

[Rebelbase]

Can you spell it out?

[hope]

She has already had strep and rheumatic fever in the past. How does gum disease effect the heart?

[hellinahandcart]

Well, at 19 she's not in danger of losing her teeth immediately (though I'm suspecting the one she broke and had root-canalled has either died or developed a cyst---been there too!).

But as Vinnie pointed out, the problem with these bacteria is that they don't stay in your mouth. They can cause all kinds of other problems down the road. And if the doc hasn't done a culture to pinpoint the specific bacteria, they don't know what they're fighting, and the antibiotics may only SEEM to be working.

Bring all this up with your dentist, if you don't want to go the perio route just yet.

[hellinahandcart]

The bad gum bacteria release toxins into the bloodstream.

Here's one article, there are probably hundreds online.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/02/020208080039.htm

I'm not going to push this any further than saying one more time that you'll save thousands of dollars in the long run by nipping it in the bud now.