Posted on 11/17/2007 4:12:41 PM PST by neverdem
Some of the most aggressive antibiotic-resistant staph infections gain their advantage with a molecule that punctures the immune cells trying to fight off the bacteria, scientists have discovered. Understanding the role of this molecule in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) could lead to new therapies for the notoriously hard-to-treat, and sometimes fatal, skin infection.
Staph bacteria are ubiquitous but aren't dangerous unless they seep into an open wound. Even then, antibiotics will usually stop the infection. But some strains of staph that infect hospital patients with weakened immune systems have become resistant to all standard antibiotics, including methicillin.
Now, a newer strain of the flesh-eating disease has swept through schools, day care centers, health club locker rooms, and prisons. So-called community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) typically afflicts healthy people because it's especially effective at causing infections in the first place. For now, it's resistant only to methicillin, but scientists fear that it will become resistant to other antibiotics.
In the Oct. 17 Journal of the American Medical Association, Monina Klevens of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and her colleagues gave the first statistics on just how widespread MRSA has become. The researchers estimated that 94,360 cases occurred in 2005, leading to 18,650 deaths. They argued that these numbers are on the rise, particularly outside the hospital setting.
In a separate study, Michael Otto of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and his colleagues found a molecule involved in CA-MRSA's success.
While studying small molecules that help a different bacterium, Staphylococcus epidermidis, fight its host, the scientists decided to check whether MRSA carried a similar molecule. They found that CA-MRSA had much more of a protein called phenol-soluble modulin (PSM) than the less virulent MRSA strains associated with hospitals had.
"Different bacteria have different strategies to attack the...,"
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Is that what happened to you? You went to a Kenny Chesney concert and then became deathly ill?
I just drove past one and became illiterate and passionate for siblings.
It's bad stuff, worse than crack.
Country "music" kills. ;-)
Dad was a man of great appetite and dined with the proverbial gusto - so we know it irked his guts to have to undergo spoonfeeding and "thickened liquids"** for his last few weeks.
**Aspirational pneumonia, probably caused by his Parkinson's....ingested entirely too much water into the lungs.
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I plan to get some from Home Depot & use it. Thankfully I feel much better then I did. I spent almost all of Sunday in bed & maybe thats what I needed. Thank you for all of your help. ~Pandy~
THis may not be the problem, but if you are low on calcium, that can cause cardiac arrythmias, among other things. If your pulse is weak or irregular, get to a doctor, please.
Now see, this is why I've always protested the fact that medical insurance is always separate from dental insurance. Why? It's been proven that dental problems can negatively affect the entire body. The mouth is part of the body. Oral health is just AS important. Other than dentists being able to charge more for dental treatment, I just can't see any logical reason for this. Dental should automatically be part of or included in medical insurance. And yet, it's always separate and more expensive. I could understand it if the procedure was merely cosmetic. Any cosmetic procedure should be more costly. But regular health issues dealing with teeth and gums? It should be considered the same as any OTHER part of the body.
One of my problems is I have Hep C from a blood transfusion I got back in 1982. I'm used to getting sick easily & being tired but I can't remember feeling this sick since I was a child.
This sounds pretty basic, but with the sore throat and all, are you staying hydrated?
Yes, I am drinking ginger ale & green ice tea & 7 Up. I am even gargling. The worst part of today is that its the parent/teacher meeting & my husband is going alone. I don’t know who I feel more sorry for the teacher or Joe. The only good thing I can think of is that if she makes him mad he will finally agree to homeschool. Sassy is a well behaved child & does her work so there shouldn’t be a problem.
I'm not a doctor, but I'd get in to one if I were you.
BTW, I sure hope you feel better soon.
My doctor’s office just called & my doctor is out sick. They told me to just keep taking the meds until I can see him. When I had the strep test he didn’t say if there were any white spots. Isn’t thrush something children get? I have a vague memory of getting it as a child or one of my siblings did. This week is not starting out pleasantly!
Here is the link to the Mayo clinic pages on it. Mayo
This may not be the problem, your throat may just be raw from coughing.
Do you have a back-up doctor you can call?
Thanks for the info. No just my dr’s partner who I don’t get along with. I like my doctor quite a bit because he works with me on the Hep C. I’ve found most family doctors just shove you off to the gastro doctors. This doctor has taken the time to look into my problems and find a hospital that he trusts to deal with the Hep C. I am sure when he calls in he will call me asap.
Actually, it’s even worse than you suspect. That is, dentists, orthodontists, periodontists, and oral surgeons, while they work closely with each other all the time, are really unto themselves. As a glaring example, dentists and orthodontists don’t even use the same numbering system for teeth.
They do, however, have strict limits on what each of their specialties does, and the order in which they do it, based on what the problem is.
As far as relating to other doctors, however, it is more problematic. I suspect this is because referrals are to a great extent limited from them to internists, not the other way around. In this way, dentists often act as GPs for all sorts of oral problems, and problems reflected in the mouth that only their diagnosis and experience would detect.
Unless a problem is glaringly obvious, a GP would send someone with any oral problem to an ear, nose, and throat specialist, or a gastroenterologist. But for example, in the case of my Aunt, they would look everywhere but the mouth for problems. They would even suspect a brain infection first. And it certainly didn’t help that she was elderly, with reduced mental capacity at the time.
I think they finally diagnosed her problem after months because she had a routine dental check-up.
In any event, there are reasons why the two branches of medicine have drifted apart. It might not be the best situation, but it is not done for petty reasons.
As an aside, I had a cousin who was a dentist, and while driving halfway across my State, I got a two-hour rant about the FDA. Seems that they had decided to ban some black, tarry goop that dentists had been putting in tooth sockets for over a hundred years to stave off infections, because if you ate several ounces of it, you would get sick. But there was no alternative available at the time.
So the FDA was willing to accept perhaps 30,000 serious dental infections annually, in exchange for banning the stuff, which in a hundred years had not sickened a single person. Needless to say, my cousin disagreed. A lot.
My best friend was fighting multiple serious infections and they couldn’t figure out why.
The doctor checked her heart and heard a murmur, and commented that next time she had dental work, she’d need to go on anti-biotics beforehand as a precaution. My friend then told the doctor that her symptoms actually started after her last cleaning, which she had not made the connection before. She said the doctor actually blanched because she finally figured out what the problem was; my friend was going septic.
She was on three very powerful anti-biotics for several weeks to finally clear up the infection. At the rate she was going, if they hadn’t caught it, she likely would have died from it.
Is there a reason you are posting to me on this old thread and off subject too? So bored you need to come look through old threads.....Or did you just get allowed back on to FR? Check the air in your own tires & have a nice day.
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