The 5 Scariest Beauty Disasters Of All Time

Rika Nurrahmah | 2:17 pm, July 15th, 2010

Oh, the things we do in the name of beauty! When it comes to a little confidence booster, we naturally assume the experts in charge (dermatologists, cosmetic surgeons, salons, etc) know what they’re doing. So we embrace the cuticle pushing, the knife incisions, the chemical dyes because there’s no way any salon session or procedure might end up echoing a freaky “Final Destination” accident under their certified hands, right?

But alas, even the worst case scenarios can happen to the best of us.

From moldy fingers to braid-causing bacterial infections, the following five disasters left us second-guessing our typical beauty regimen:

1) Woman’s braids land her in the emergency room - Would you ever equate a swollen face and closed eyes with a bad braid job? North Carolina resident Veronica Carter’s recent braid job resulted in a “hard-to-treat” bacterial infection called MRSA, or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The cause? Excessively tightened braids and an accidental incision from her hairdresser’s long nails, a lethal combination that allowed the bacteria to erupt.

2) Former tanner injured not by a UV burn, but the bursting UV light bulbs – There are no shortage of reports covering the inherent health risks in tanning, but how about the dangers of the tanning bed itself? A North Carolina freak tanning accident has officially scared us pale. A female customer was using a stand-up tanning bed when a light bulb burst. Shards of glass flew and cut up the tanner, who fortunately only suffered minor injuries.

3) A Brazilian wax job cuts too close to the female region, ouch! – Ladies, you might want to finish whatever you’re consuming before reading this. Though it does the job, the fault of Brazilian wax strips — and just hair wax in general — is that you can apply them anywhere. But seriously, of all places, your labia? In early 2007, Former Connecticut resident Debbie Becker went to Salon de Oasis in the state for some below-the-waist maintenance when a salon technician let some hot wax trickle into the labia region, causing burns and cuts to ensue. After $750 in medical bills, excruciating pain, and trauma, the customer settled a lawsuit of $100,000 with the salon for damages.

4) Paula Abdul’s moldy manicure – The jolt of pain experienced from a cuticle pushed back too hard could mean more than just rough play from the manicurist, at least in the case of this disaster. The angel of the American Idol judges had a temporary leave of absence in 2005 when a botched manicure job made the singer suffer an infected nail on her right thumb. Looks like the salon should have tripled checked how sterile its cuticle pushers were because Abdul campaigned to have California legislators crack down on salons who ‘don’t clean up their act.’ Moral of the story: never mess with Paula.

5) Woman sets hair on fire with hairspray – File this under “idiotic.” Bartender Dani Hamm should have read our article on the dangers of multitasking while driving before making this hot mess. Used to using a copious amount of hairspray on her unruly locks, Hamm’s craving for a smoke ignited a bonfire on her head when she tried to light a cigarette and drive at the same time. The story got her elected as “Village Idiot” of Story, Indianapolis, as well as a $100 tab at the bar at which she works.

Friend’s illness brings home `new’ clostridium difficile diarrhea

By Dr. Claire Panosian Dunavan

Once upon a time, infections fell into two categories, roughly speaking: those that plagued hospitals and those that lived in the “real world.”

Like it or not, that era is over. Many hospital varmints are now in our midst.

Take MRSA, aka methicillin-resistant staph aureus. Years ago, this bug was found almost exclusively in ICUs, surgical wards, dialysis units, nursing homes – and, perhaps, in the occasional injection drug user.

Today, someone who is entirely healthy and has never set foot in a sickbay can pick up MRSA at the gym.

The same trend is occurring, alas, with a major intestinal foe.

Clostridium difficile, a longtime bane of hospital patients, is also spilling into the community. And it’s proving tougher than ever to quash.

This last fact recently struck home when a friend suffered a case of C. difficile diarrhea that – two years later – is still wreaking havoc.

In a minute, I’ll share details of her battle against the toxin-bearing bacterium that – in certain folks – can turn a once-sturdy intestinal lining into a leaky, inflamed rag.

But first let’s step back and consider reasons for this new spate of C. difficile infection.

The No. 1 risk factor for C. difficile is prior antibiotic treatment. Thirty years ago, a drug called clindamycin was its leading trigger, followed by broad-spectrum antibiotics prescribed in hospitals. Today, overuse of fluoroquinolone antibiotics (ciprofloxacin and its kin) is predisposing even more people to a possible run-in with the gut-dwelling stowaway.

In addition, in the early 2000s, a new strain of C. difficile with hepped-up virulence and hardy spores surfaced. This mutated strain – which recurs in up to 25 percent of treated patients – incites a range of ills from watery diarrhea, fever, and nausea to rare cases of “toxic megacolon,” perforation and death.

Which brings me back to the friend I’ll call Kendra. In hindsight, her story illustrates key features of the new pathogenic strain, although her medical saga unfolded slowly.

In 2006 and 2007, Kendra – a journalist, wife and mother – suffered a string of respiratory infections along with a hacking cough that just wouldn’t quit. As a result, her doctor prescribed several courses of ciprofloxacin as well as prednisone to tame the chronic inflammation in her airways.

Then, in 2008, Kendra suddenly developed diarrhea and felt nauseated and unwell, dropping more than 10 pounds in the space of a week. As she now recalls, her doctor tested her stool specimen for “everything but C. diff.,” then performed a colonoscopy, which seemed to show ulcerative colitis.

Kendra had already downed two or three days’ worth of powerful immunosuppressives for her newly-diagnosed bowel ailment when she received an urgent telephone message.

“Stop prednisone now!” her doctor said, in essence. “We just found C. diff.”

A course of Flagyl worked wonders, but only for a while. A year later, a new round of symptoms – sudden loss of appetite and rapid weight loss, profound weakness and profuse, blood-tinged diarrhea – hit Kendra when she was already exhausted following a probable case of swine flu. On top of that, her father lay ill in a Midwest hospital.

Here in Los Angeles, lab tests confirmed Kendra’s worst fear. Her C. difficile infection had indeed relapsed. Another course of Flagyl ensued and seemed to stem the tide. Nonetheless, Kendra’s recurrent C. diff. infection prevented her from returning to her dying father’s side for two more weeks.

The final blow? Last fall, the whole business hit again. This time, however, C. difficile tests were negative. According to the best medical evidence, Kendra now has true ulcerative colitis. As a result, she’s lost 40 pounds, been hospitalized twice, and received four blood transfusions. Thankfully – due to state-of-the-art medications, nutritional supplements, and other therapies including weekly acupuncture – she’s finally on the mend. But it’s been a mighty rough ride.

Did Clostridium difficile set the stage for my friend’s aggressive bowel disease? As in all “anecdotal” medical stories, we can’t be sure. But it’s hard to imagine it didn’t play some role.

Over the years, I’ve diagnosed and treated many cases of C. difficile in critically ill and vulnerable hosts.

By coincidence, I even launched my infectious diseases career in the Boston hospital that pioneered its diagnosis, sometimes ferrying patients’ toxin-laced stool specimens to a research lab fridge in the middle of the night.

Back then, I never dreamed I would see its nasty handiwork in a whole new generation of healthy friends and colleagues.

Next week: Fighting back: new weapons in the war against C. difficile

Dr. Claire Panosian Dunavan is an infectious disease specialist and a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a resident of Pasadena. Dr. Dunavan can be reached at drclaired@earthlink.net.

STOP the spread of MRSA – Encourge Good Hygiene

You can’t teach an old doc new tricks

15 July 2010 | by Nick O’Donoghue //

Teaching doctors and nurses the importance of good hand hygiene could be more difficult than getting children to wash their hands.

Medical virologist at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital, Professor Dominic Dwyer, said spreading the hygiene message to the community could produce better outcomes than trying to get doctors to wash their hands before treating individual patients.

“The message is difficult to get across; we can’t do it very well even with our health care providers in our hospitals our doctors and our nurses.

“That’s one of the reasons we have problems with MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus).   “I think it’s time to get the message into the communities. It may in fact be easier, in some ways, to train kids to wash their hands.

“All kids know to wash their hands after going to the toilet – so you can get these messages across,” he said.

Prof Dwyer noted there have been particular problems getting doctors to maintain a high standard of hand hygiene as they move around various wards within a hospital, making it difficult to monitor them.

“If you’ve got the nurses in a certain ward and they’re going from patient-to-patient you can monitor and encourage hand-washing, whereas a doctor goes from one ward and then goes off to another ward.

“It makes it more difficult [to monitor], but it does not absolve them from the responsibility of washing their hands,” he said.

Speaking at the Australian leg of the Hygiene Council’s Breaking the Chain of Infection roadshow, Prof Dwyer revealed the findings of a hygiene study of Australian homes, which found high levels of harmful bacteria around bathroom seals and the interiors of fridges.

The research also noted 75 per cent of Australians clean their fridge less than once a month.

Green Bay Packers Are Protecting Against MRSA

Posted by rdvz on July 21, 2010 · Leave a Comment (Edit)

Green Bay equipment manager uses Sani Sport machine to sanitize gear

By Lori Nickel of the Journal Sentinel

Green Bay — Football players usually worry about wrecked knees, torn hamstrings and concussions. Not staph infections.

“I never think about it,” said Green Bay Packers cornerback Tramon Williams. “I don’t even know anything about that.”

Red Batty would like to keep it that way.

The Packers equipment manager has the never-ending job of cleaning and maintaining the team gear. A few years ago he added something new to his already manic daily routine: the Sani Sport machine.

It is a machine that according to its manufacturer kills dangerous and contagious staph and e-coli bacteria and the H1N1 virus, all of which could sideline a player like any injury.

And the Packers have avoided these nuisances all because their equipment guy is a hockey fanatic.

Batty grew up five minutes from the Forum in Montreal, where he followed the NHL’s Canadiens devotedly. Even while working in Green Bay, he kept up with the NHL and had heard of guys like Joe Thornton, who needed surgery to correct a staph infection.

“It shuts you down for a while,” said Batty. “And there’s many other cases of it.”

Aware of the bacteria’s scary consequences, Batty heard about Sani Sport and met its inventor, another Montreal native, Steve Silver, who owned a company that manufactures skate sharpening machines. Silver explained to Batty how the machine works.

“Red Batty was the first NFL equipment manager to embrace our technology,” said Silver, president of Sani Sport. “He is tremendously well respected and is admired by his peers.”

Batty went to his bosses at the Packers, who signed off on the $10,000 purchase immediately. Batty has been using it for the last four years.

“After that, I got Steve invited to the NFL equipment manager meetings, and from there it skyrocketed,” said Batty.

Thirteen NFL and 27 NHL teams have a Sani Sport.

Batty uses the machine year round. He can clean 10 helmets in one cycle, five or six shoulder pads in another and then 20 pairs of shoes. It looks like a giant oven, but Sani Sport actually uses ozone to kill the bacteria.

“Ozone is very effective at eliminating bacteria,” said Silver. “Sani Sport generates ozone and filters it into a cabinet where the gear sits.”

The machine then applies a protective coating to the gear.

“In training camp we’ll pull it out and we’ll do certain positions per day,” said Batty. “We focus strictly on the helmets and the pads; that’s where the target area is at.”

To further fight staph, Batty has also cranked up the water temperature on his washing machines to 155 degrees.

“If your water is down about 120, 130, it’s not going to get hot enough to kill that,” said Batty. “If your water is running higher, your soap is more active. If the soap is more active it will do its job to kill that kind of stuff.”

The NFL has had high-profile staph cases. Quarterback Tom Brady had infection-related medical procedures, reportedly to fix staph, after his season-ending knee surgery in 2008. That same year, a staph infection in Peyton Manning’s bursa sac in his knee required surgery and weeks of recovery time.

Kellen Winslow Jr. had a staph infection in 2008 in Cleveland, the sixth player to become affected with staph in that organization in three seasons. Joe Jurevicius was another.

“There’s obviously a problem (with staph), and we have to fix it,” Winslow told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Any staph infection is tough to fight in a locker room. A particular concern is Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureusis, a strain of the bacteria resistant to ordinary antibiotics.

“MRSA can be acquired in all facets of daily life,” said Silver. “Because of the nature of contact sports, many cuts and abrasions take place, thereby allowing bacteria to enter the person’s system.”

Highly contagious staph can spread easily and quickly.

Packers center Scott Wells was a wrestler in high school, ranked No. 1 nationally as a heavyweight. Staph infections are “not new to me; everybody got it in wrestling,” he said.

“I had a friend who went to high school with me, Bubba Miller, who got it in his ankle after ankle surgery,” said Wells. “He couldn’t pass his physical.”

Surgery is a risk for getting staph; but just going to work shouldn’t be. Wells thought the team mostly fought staph with a red soap, placed at various points around the facility but not as prevalent as all the hand sanitizers. The use of it is optional.

“You can use it. I don’t,” said Wells. “It smells funny.”

He didn’t know about Batty’s Sani Sport. But he puts his faith in the training staff to avoid staph.

“Everybody has their own set of pads, so you’re not using someone else’s pads,” said Wells. “Each time you use a table they wipe it down with these medical wipes basically that kills that stuff.”

FDA Clears Advanced Molecular Test for MRSA

July 12, 2010 — The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared an in vitro diagnostic test (LightCycler MRSA Advanced; Roche Molecular Systems, Inc) for the direct detection of nasal colonization with bacterial methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

According to a company news release, the real-time polymerase chain reaction test delivers results from nasal swab specimens within 2 hours and appears to have better sensitivity than direct culture-based methods.

Performed on the company's LightCycler 2.0 instrument, the test offers a simple, flexible, and reliable method for MRSA screening that can help prevent and contain the spread of infection in healthcare settings.

"The introduction of this new advanced test will expand the options healthcare facilities have for MRSA screening using molecular diagnostic methods," said Lance Peterson, MD, FASCP, in a company news release. "The test showed good sensitivity with minimal hands-on time. Technicians now have the ability to have flexible batch sizes which could make it the cost-effective choice for many hospital laboratories."

Dr. Peterson is an epidemiologist and a founder of the MRSA screening program at the NorthShore University Health System in Evanston, Illinois.

The advanced MRSA test previously was cleared for use in the European Union.

What you need to know ABOUT MRSA

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA is quickly becoming a well known term associated with nosocomial infections in hospitals. The incidence of infection with this and other resistant strains of bacteria have been steadily increasing over the past few years. Infections with these microorganisms present many problems, two of which are the lack of available antimicrobial agents that can be used to treat infections and the potential for these organisms to “transfer” their resistance to other types and species of bacteria.

A complete discussion on the mechanics of bacterial resistance is not necessary to understand how to stop transmission of these infections to susceptible patients or other healthcare workers. Current literature cites that the implementation of appropriate infection control measures is the best way to prevent person to person transmission of resistant bacteria. What are appropriate infection control measures? Appropriate Infection control measures would include, but are not limited to, steps aimed at the prevention and control of spread of infectious diseases in susceptible populations. Of these measures, the simplest one is...

WASH YOUR HANDS!!

According to the Standard Precautions as described in the “Guideline for Isolation Precautions in Hospitals”, the following procedures are recommended to prevent the spread of pathogenic organisms:

“Hand-washing should be performed after touching blood, body fluids, secretions, excretions, and contaminated items whether or not gloves are worn. Wash hands immediately after gloves are removed, between patient contacts, and when otherwise indicated to avoid transfer of microorganisms to other patients or environments. It may be necessary to wash hands between tasks and procedures on the same patient to prevent cross-contamination of different body sites.”1

HealthLink offers AloeGuard® Antimicrobial Soap as the solution to the problems of dry skin associated with frequent hand-washing and the need for a soap that kills bacteria, specifically those that are resistant to antimicrobials. Laboratory studies show that AloeGuard® with 0.5% PCMX has been shown to be highly effective against MRSA, as well as numerous other bacteria, yeast and fungi.

AloeGuard® is specially formulated with aloe vera to protect your skin’s delicate balance and to provide the high antimicrobial efficacy necessary for personal protection and reduction of cross contamination with MRSA and other pathogenic organisms.

1.Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 1996; 17:53-80

April 2003

IS YOUR HOME OR OFFICE PROTECTED FROM HARMFUL BACTERIA?

In our work environments we are often using shared equipment, facilities and other work related aids.  It is critical for us to constantly keep a clean and germ free work area that promotes the health and safety of ourselves and our colleagues.  You may want to consider various dispensers, pumps, spray bottles, aerosol sprays or squeeze bottles in the work area that will quickly provide the right amount of disinfectant or antiseptic for the job at hand.  Bulk purchases of liquids by the gallon can be used to refill the smaller dispensers as well as used for larger clean up jobs.  See what products are available. It should be noted that OSHA inspectors are advising medical facilities to use products that routinely kill MRSA, the Aids Virus and the Hepatitis Viruses.  One of the key advantages to alcohol based antiseptics and disinfectants is that the micro organisms do not build up a tolerance to the kill factors in these germicidal products, it’s not like antibiotics that allow the bugs to become resistant to the killing mechanisms.

For those of us that have been so unfortunate as to contract the various virus and bacterial based diseases like Aides, Herpes, MRSA, VRE, Hepatitis, etc. we know we can’t be cured by now performing the preventive actions of cleaning skin and surfaces before use.  However by assuring that we do have properly cleaned surfaces of common areas, common equipment and tools we can certainly help to stop the spread of these highly infectious maladies.  In our office environments today with people using communal phones, key boards, bathroom facilities and furniture items we have a difficult time protecting everyone from a possible infection.  In our homes with children and pets constantly running in and out along with  delivery people, vendors, service personnel and even visiting family and friends we are hard pressed to maintain a germ free environment.  Using wipes, sprays, gels, aerosols, liquids and soaps we can assure ourselves of a much higher level of protection from threatening germs, viruses and micro organisms.

The story of my son's encounter with MRSA...

by Deneene A. Collins

After he kept complaining about it for about a week I came to the conclusion that maybe it wasn't just a pimple but I still didn't know what it was and thought it might be an insect or spider bite of some kind. Since some spider bites can be dangerous I decided to take him to the doctor to have it looked at and boy am I glad that I did.

I never really heard of MRSA, nor did I know how serious it was. Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is a bacterial infection which is a living organism that can commonly cause skin and other types of infections. Some of the signs and symptoms of the disease include: cellulitis, bumps on the skin, boils, abscesses, a sty, carbuncles, impetigo or other collections of puss in and under the skin. I found out that MRSA can be fatal in very serious cases. According to statistics from the Kaiser foundation in 2007 the mortality rate among hospitalized MRSA patients is estimated to be between 4% - 10%. In my research I also found out that more people die from MRSA in the United States every year than from AIDS. It became evident that we were dealing with a possible life threatening disease that we thought was just a pimple or bug bite.

The first clinic we got to was closing but the nurse practitioner took one glance at my son and said that it could be MRSA and that I needed to clean and cover the soar and get him to a doctor right away. No clinics were open so I purchased an over the counter aseptic and some bandages to get us through the night.

That night, when we applied the aseptic my son was in serious pain and the soar ruptured in his sleep due to the aseptic working on the infection. When the bump burst it even bled through the bandages. First thing in the morning I took him to urgent care and the doctor knew what it was immediately. She squeezed and squeezed the bump pushing puss out of it and took a culture to send to the lab. Antibiotics were prescribed for ten days and we received instructions to wash the sore with warm soapy water at least twice a day. The doctor also instructed us to apply hot compresses to the infected area 4 to 5 times a day so that it would come to a head and drain properly. It was also vitally important to keep the infected area completely covered with a bandage during the day and he had to wash his hands often.

MRSA Staff Infection is highly contagious and can be contracted simply by touching something an infected person has touched with the infection on their hands and then touching yourself somewhere. Trust me when I say that as humans we don't realize how many things we touch before rubbing our eyes or touching our faces and bodies. Just think about the items you touch in a store like the shopping cart someone else you don't even know just used or the credit card payment machine. Don't be germophobic but come into a greater awareness of all the places where germs can and do exist.

The doctor emphasized that no one should even use the same bathroom as my son if possible and absolutely under no circumstances should anyone use the same towel he had used not even to dry their hands. We still don't know where my son contracted MRSA from but since this type of infection has become popular as a community associated disease it can come from anywhere. My son plays baseball so he could have gotten it from wearing the catcher's mask or by touching equipment that had the disease on it from someone else. He also could have easily gotten from a school desk or counter top, the school restroom or even a borrowed pen.

We were extremely blessed that my son's case of MRSA was caught early and easily treated. Some others have not been so fortunate. I remember a client of mine telling me many years ago that she got MRSA from getting a staple in her finger at work and by the time she was treated her blood was poisoned and she had to have IV treatments for a number of months. Back then I didn't know what MRSA was but I remembered her experience when my son was diagnosed. To truly diagnose the disease you have to get the lab results back but the disease can be so deadly it is important to treat it as MRSA right away if MRSA is suspected and not wait on the results to start taking action.

Another incident I heard of from a friend was about her brother that had MRSA but it was misdiagnosed as a spider bite so he was given the wrong treatment while the MRSA got worse. By the time the doctors found out what it really was he had to have the infected area cut open and dug out almost reaching down to his bone. If MRSA is not properly treated and if all the infection is not removed it can come back and require further treatment. If you have a child with MRSA make sure you notify the school nurse and oversee the treatment of the disease carefully. It is also very important that the entire antibiotic treatment is taken to the very end and a follow up visit to the doctor is recommended upon completion of the antibiotics. As always, when taking antibiotics, plenty of water should be consumed.

MRSA can be fatal so kill it before it kills you! The steps to take are simple really. You've already taken the first step by reading this article and educating yourself about this disease. If you suspect that you or someone you know may have MRSA please see a doctor right away. Here are some tips for you to follow regarding MRSA:

- Seek early diagnosis and treatment if you suspect you may have MRSA due to puss filled, red, soar or irritated areas on your body and skin.
- Take the full prescription of antibiotics prescribed by your doctor.
- Wash your hands often and clean surfaces with germ killing substances or wipes.
- Do not come into physical contact with someone you know has been diagnosed with MRSA.
- Keep soars and infected areas clean and covered.
- Stay informed and live healthy.

MRSA Superbug By Bob Schmuck

Though recently MRSA has become newsworthy, its history started many years ago when antibiotics were believed to be a cure all. Patents actively requested antibiotics and doctors freely prescribed them. Staphylococcus proved to be smarter than humans and mutated to survive. A strain developed that is resistant to common antibiotic treatment and it no longer is confined to hospitals (up to 33% of the population are carriers).

MRSA Fact And Fiction:

1. •Fiction-MRSA is a superbug that cannot be treated with antibiotics.
   

2. •Fact-MRSA can be treated with antibiotics. It is the penicillin related (like methicillin) antibiotics that are ineffective on MRSA.
   

3. •Fiction-MRSA is a superbug that will kill you.
   

4. •Fact-MRSA can be treated in healthy adults. Early detection reduces the risk of death for everyone. Young children and anyone with a compromised immune system is at a higher risk for death from MRSA. Many people who contract MRSA are in hospitals, nursing facilities, and other places that care for people who are ill to begin with.
   

5. •Fiction-MRSA is only found in hospitals.
   

6. •Fact-About 33% of the population are MRSA carriers (it lives primarily in the nose). Nursing homes, gymnasiums, and businesses have MRSA on many of its surfaces that are commonly touched.
   

The prevention of MRSA:

1. •Prevention of MRSA is as easy as washing your hands and using hand disinfectant. This should be done when touching common areas in public places, especially in hospitals. Any time someone touches their nose they should wash their hands. Parents and caregivers should also wash their hands when helping someone who cannot wipe their own nose.
   

2. •Build a strong immune system by eating right, taking supplements, getting adequate rest, and reducing stress to prevent the superbug MRSA from causing an infection when there is unavoidable contact with the infection.
   

3. •Keep open sores clean and when need be, covered.
   

Recognizing MRSA Signs And Symptoms:

1. •All Staph infections, including MRSA, will begin as small red bumps that look like pimples, boils or spider bites.
   

2. •A deep and painful abscess that requires medical intervention like surgical draining.
   

3. •When an MRSA bacterium spreads deep into the body, it can cause infections in bones, joints, surgical wounds, the bloodstream, heart valves, and lungs. For some, this infection can be life-threatening.
   

Treatment of MRSA:

1. •Before antibiotics are started for a skin infection, a health care professional should test it for staph bacteria (which includes MRSA), to prescribe the most effective treatment.
   

2. •Treatment of MRSA won't always include antibiotics. To avoid outbreaks of vancomycin-resistant MRSA, vancomycin may be saved for those most at risk of the infection spreading and those most at risk for death. In healthy people, some doctors may choose to drain an abscess caused by MRSA rather than treat the infection with drugs. Some hospitals are already seeing vancomycin-resistant MRSA.
   

Alternative medicine and MRSA:

1. •Manuka honey kills MRSA (remember, honey never should be given internally to anyone under 1 year old)
   

2. •Colloidal silver kills MRSA
   

3. •Tea tree oil kills MRSA
   

Using alternative medicine to find out other treatments that are effective should be done with the supervision of someone who is professionally trained in that area and with the supervision of a health care professional who can test the effectiveness.

Though there are parts of the population that are at higher risk for complications and even death from the superbug, MRSA, it is still a treatable and preventable infection for a high percentage of the population.

What is MRSA? Symptoms and Prevention

By Brandon Johnsonn

You've probably seen the recent headlines about this menacing "super bug" ravaging through hospitals, gyms, and even schools.
MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This is a fancy way of saying that an MRSA staph infection is resistant to most antibiotics, and thus, harder to treat.
The important thing to remember is that MRSA isn't new. The threat has been around for many years, but a recent report from the American Medical Association highlighted the number of deaths it caused in 2005 (nineteen thousand). That report, combined with the untimely death of a 17-year-old student due to the infection, sparked fear in the hearts of many parents and hospital patients.

MRSA Symptoms
One of the reasons many cases of MRSA go untreated is that the symptoms are fairly common among several other illnesses. Some of the most common MRSA symptoms are simply flu-like in nature or, in some cases, red pimples or boils that seem to last longer than they should.
Still, if you feel you may have been exposed to the bacteria, you should visit your doctor immediately at the first sign of any trouble. If caught early enough, almost every case is fully treatable.

MRSA Prevention
Of course, the best way to deal with MRSA is to simply prevent it in the first place. And, it's actually easier than you might expect:

Wash your hands. It seems easy enough, and you've been hearing it since you were a kid, but it really is one of the most effective ways to prevent MRSA, in addition to several other illnesses. "It is not glamorous but it is very true -- hand hygiene is by far the best means to prevent the spread of all diseases," said Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, an epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cover up. Cover all scrapes, cuts, or any other open wounds with bandages and/or band-aids. If MRSA makes its way into your bloodstream, that's when it can quickly become potentially fatal.

Ban the barefoot. If you frequent your local gym locker room, be sure to wear sandals (even in the showers). This will help keep your feet from coming in direct contact with bacteria others may have left in your path.

Wipe it down. Always carry a towel with you when you workout, so you can wipe down any equipment that others may have inconsiderately left sweaty.

Nearly every case of MRSA is spread by direct contact, rather than through the air, which is why good hygiene is the most important and effective way to stay healthy.
Have you or anyone you know been infected by MRSA?

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