 Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), up close as seen under a scanning electron microscope.
Photo Credit: CDC/ Jim Biddle, Janice Haney Carr |
If you think you may have a Staph or MRSA infection, it’s critical that you get the correct diagnosis before your treatments get too far along. Using the wrong antibiotic can actually cause MRSA to grow even more, prolonging your infection and creating additional risk to you and your family.
Getting a MRSA diagnosis can be scary, but knowing your infection is caused by MRSA will help you fashion the best treatment model and give you the best chances to stop your infection.
MRSA and other ‘superbug’ infections are a growing problem that can affect anyone, regardless of your health, your vocation, where you live, your economic status or what activities you do. MRSA infects nearly 100,000 people each year and is the cause of up to 20 percent of all hospital infections. MRSA is now becoming common outside of hospitals, causing what is called community associated MRSA (CA-MRSA). There are a number of activities that can make it easier to get MRSA, but no one is immune to these potentially deadly infections.
MRSA can be very hard to treat because of the problem of antibiotic resistance (this is where a correct MRSA diagnosis will help). With the rise of resistant infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has warned that the age of antibiotics may be soon drawing to an end, returning the world to a “pre-antibiotic era”. In recent years some strains of MRSA have become resistant to even the newest “last resort” antibiotics such as Vancomycin, and most recently Zyvox.
The bottom line is that MRSA is a common problem that is difficult to treat and often leads to serious and deadly infections. MRSA should not be taken lightly. Getting the correct MRSA test and knowing whether you have MRSA or not can literally make the difference between life and death. If you suspect that you may have Staph or MRSA because of the symptoms that you have, it is very important that you get tested to confirm what is causing your infection. Given how dangerous MRSA can be, you should see a doctor as soon as possible and make sure that you get a proper diagnosis of your infection.
Why Proper MRSA Diagnosis is Critical
The first and most important step toward successfully treating your infection is to get a proper diagnosis from an experienced medical professional. You don’t have to guess if you have MRSA or not. You can reduce your worries about your infection by knowing what you are dealing with. Getting a prompt and accurate diagnosis of what is causing your infection will quickly put you on the path to successfully controlling and overcoming your infection.
Here are some of the reasons why getting a MRSA test is so important:
- MRSA is commonly misdiagnosed: It is VERY COMMON to have MRSA misdiagnosed as a spider bite or as another type of infection. This is a waste of your time and money and often leads you to take drugs and undergo treatments that don’t even help you. And what’s worse, a misdiagnosis will delay you from getting the proper infection treatment quickly, which often leads to a more severe or invasive infection.
- Staph and MRSA are potentially deadly: In 2005, nearly 19,000 deaths resulted from MRSA, more deaths than AIDS, emphysema or homicide. MRSA infections can easily go internally into your body and quickly cause serious and life threatening internal infections such as septicemia (blood poisoning) and MRSA pneumonia. Because some strains of MRSA are resistant to even the newest and most potent antibiotics, some MRSA infections are untreatable with antibiotics, usually resulting in severe, debilitating infection or death.
- Stealth/Hiding Bacteria: MRSA has the ability to morph into an L-form or “stealth” bacteria, which can hide within your body and is untouchable by antibiotics.
- Contagious: Staph and MRSA can be very contagious depending on the type of infection you have. Staph and MRSA infections can even be spread through the air.
MRSA Tests
The only way to know if you have MRSA is with a MRSA test (typically a MRSA culture test). You can look at infection photos and read all about the symptoms of MRSA, but only a bacterial culture test or DNA-based test can confirm what is causing your infection.
MRSA Culture Test: A MRSA culture test will identify what type of bacteria is causing your infection. This is where they grow up the bacteria that are causing your infection and use a series of tests to identify the bacteria.
However, medical doctors will not routinely perform a MRSA culture test. They typically will simply give you a broad spectrum antibiotic for general infections. Broad spectrum antibiotics do not work against MRSA and can cause even greater infection, or worse yet, create antibiotic resistance in a general Staph infection.
So, be sure to ask your doctor for a bacterial culture test. These tests are very simple and easy to do and are relatively inexpensive. Newer DNA based MRSA tests that are faster than culture tests can even produce results in a few hours.
If you chose to use antibiotics for your infection, knowing what’s causing your infection will lead your doctor to the best antibiotic – taking out much of the “guess work” and possible complications. There are also many safe and powerful natural antimicrobial treatments that can help with your infection as well.
Summary
Getting a test to confirm if you have MRSA or not is critical and has a huge impact on what type of antibiotic treatment you should receive.
Your treatment options include Western medical antibiotic treatments from you doctor as well as natural and alternative methods that you can do yourself or under the guidance of a Naturopathic Doctor, or a combination of both. Be educated and learn about all of the options that are available to you and the pros and cons of each.
As important as getting tested is, getting the right treatment is even more important in the long run. As some strains of MRSA are untreatable now by antibiotics, and many are not treated well by antibiotics, it’s critical that you learn about ALL of the safe and effective alternative methods that are available to you.
Yours in Health,
Michelle Moore
Microbiologist, Staph Researcher and Total Health Advocate
www.Staph-Infection-Resources.com
