Superbugs

MRSA is a major problem in hospitals. It is sometimes called a "superbug".

The problem is not new.

So they developed Methicillin (and later Cephalosporins) and it "went away"...

But now we have MRSA, and so are having the problem again.

Here in Oklahoma, we don't see a lot of MRSA, but when I worked in rural Minnesota, we had a lot of cases at one of our smaller clinics.

It seems that some of the elders went to the University of Minnesota hospital for Cardiac bypass or for healing of longstanding diabetic foot ulcers, and got the germ.

Soon we were seeing kids with impetigo and boils that didn't go away with the usual antibiotics (keflex or augmentin). I was astonished when I had a young mother with a breast abcess which ended up resistant to everything but Bactrim and Vancomycin. Luckily, she wasn't allergic to sulfonamides, and the abcess cleared with old fashioned "I&D (drain and pack the wound and let the body heal it) and Bactrim.

But you need higher levels of antibiotics to heal longstanding Diabetic foot wounds where the bones were infected...And the diabetic wounds now needed 4-6 weeks of IV Vancomycin (which needs closer monitoring of liver and kidney) rather than the fairly innocuous Roceophin or Ancef.

And so what we really worried about was Vancomycin resistance...the REAL superbug...because then we would have nothing.

Alexander Fleming, call your office...