MRSA has been around for a long time, but used to be mostly in elderly very ill patients. Now it's spreading into elementary schools, and otherwise healthy people. There are quite a few schools here in IN that have kids infected with it. My ds's football team played someone and they told them afterwards that one of the other team's players had MRSA so they had to scrub all the locker rooms and all the kids had to take their uniforms home to be washed. Here's a link to an article about it here. So are you having problems with this where you are???


Knowledge is key weapon in fight against 'superbug' | IndyStar.com

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I'm CRAZY worried about it, because my hubby's grandaughter has had NUMEROUS, LONG episodes with it *currently again, so we're told* I'm diabetic and have a young daughter.... I worry myself sick when she comes over. I've been using Hibiclens as twice a week on myself and my youngster *per the doc's recommendations* but everyone else in the house is supposed to as well, and they do NOT do it NEARLY as they're supposed to,, makes me ANGRY NUTS!

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Think big! Change the world! One A.R.K at a time.

There is also a huge outbreak here in the Charlotte area....we dealt with it in our family 2 years ago. The main thing is awareness & education....getting the word out, because lots of people still don't know what it is, and what to look for.

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Somewhere in S. NC....cleaning!

It's all over the news here and I can't believe there are still people I talk to that don't know what it is. Joliet is about 20 minutes away from our town and a Catholic elementary school just announced another case has popped up. I am freaking out about it!

Actually, my SIL told me about it 2 years ago. She was at Tom Thayer's restaurant, who apparantly was a Chicago Bear and is from our area. Anyway, my SIL was talking to his mother and she told her Tom almost died of MRSA. She told my SIL to tell everyone she knows about it since the goverment and hospitals seem to be trying to keep it quiet. I don't know about that but I do know that I am very careful to have kids wash their hands a lot now. I also carry a big bottle of Purel, since alcohol kills the MRSA bug.

Many people I talk to don't know that there is a strain of MRSA that is resistant to any antibiotic. ALso, the skin abscess that is the virus's hallmark doesn't always appear on the outside of the body. The kid in Virginia that just died didn't have one visible on his skin. From what I understand it was inside his body and by the time doctors realized what he had it was too late.

We just had an incident here in NY where a 12 yr old died of MRSA. In the newspaper it said : He had something on his back ... and then he started getting sick," a student said.

That something on his back was a staph infection that even with medical attention killed him in days.
We had heard about MRSA but now that this happened in our town it just made us realize just how careful we really have to be.

They've had some cases here in Maryland too.

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Stephanie
Mom to: Caleb (8/03), Ian (9/05), & Baby Boy #3 (EDD 11-9-2008)

Kindof a dumb question---what is MRSA??

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It's been around for as long as I've been a nurse so I don't understand the big media firestorm about it now. I read somewhere that it kills 18,000 people a year so shouldn't people be worried about it before. It's a staph infection that is resistent to Penicillin. It specificially stands for Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus.

Hand washing and cleaning with bleach should help prevent the spread of it.

Germs/viruses/bugs evolve over time and that's what this one has done. More money needs to go to research to find more antibiotics to kill it. Linezolid that is out now is outrageously expensive.

As a parent you can question certain doctors that give out antibiotics like it's candy. Antibiotics won't help with viruses anyway. Plus if you do get an antibiotic FINISH the dose like the directions say (unless you are allergic of course). Some people stop taking them when the feel better and the bug is not completely gone and learns how to become resistant.

As a patient in a hospital make sure you see your nurse wash her hands or using the spray/foam cleaners out now. Plus too ask if they wiped off the stethescope between patients with an alcohol swab.

DD just came home tonite with a letter that says a kid in "the city" (NYC) 2 1/2 hours away died from it, and we should be careful. The school has extended times between classes so all the kids can wash their hands every after every class. (how many high schoolers are truly washing hands instead of gossiping or making out???) Oh, and we can buy alcohol based hand sanitizer for our kids and they will HAVE to be supervised in it's use. (Can you get high off alcohol based sanitizer or something? )DD is nervous about it but DS couldn't care less.

I am a home care nurse for kids with fragile medical conditions. I have had 2 patients in the last 8 yrs who have MRSA. They have therapists who come to the house to work with them, they also work with kids in the public school. The agency i work with employs over 200 nurses and we staff over 70 cases, many of us work at more than one home - we have never had a cross contamination.Our local schools have never had a problem with it - it was never a big deal until the media made an issue out of it.