We've grown up in what we believe to be a relatively safe world...we get sick, we take a few pills and we get better. We've developed vaccinations to prevent diseases which used to scourge our society. Smallpox, polio, diphtheria - ghosts of the past. Anti-bacterial products abound and increase that sense of security. We feel confident that the germs don't stand a chance against our pills and sprays.
But, perhaps we're not so safe after all. Some of the bacteria and viruses that we've accepted as defeated are making a come back. Just like your toothpaste or hand lotion might boast that it is "New & Improved," many of the germs we lost our fear of are reinventing themselves and what worked against them before is not necessarily working now.
Back in the 1920s Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. It works by binding to and blocking an enzyme that bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, need to assemble their cell walls. When Fleming first made his discovery, penicillin obliterated nearly every strain of S. aureus. Time passed and in the 1940s penicillin became widely prescribed...and by the 1950s S. aureus was resistant in the United States. Other antibiotics were created to deal with staph infections, including methicillin. Within a few years, S. aureus adapted a bit more and strains resistant to methimicillin appeared.
By the 1990s a new strain of staph was in the hospitals and 15% of patients who were tested carried it - the methicillin resistant staph (MRSA). Scary, but the doctors weren't too worried...they still had an antibiotic developed decades earlier that seemed to beat it - vancomycin, which was not widely prescribed due to its significant side effects. Soon, however, it was time to worry. In Japan a strain of S. aureus appeared which required way more vancomycin than ever before to kill it and later that year another partially-resistant strain was found in Dearborn, Michigan.
Out there now - antibiotic resistant tuberculosis, parasites, fungi and anti-viral resistant viruses. Recently a killer cold virus has been spreading in the US. Like MRSA, it is causing death even in otherwise healthy adults. Since a 12 day old baby girl was stricken with this adenovirus in May 2006, there have been 10 deaths of 141 confirmed cases.
CDC epidemic intelligence officer John Su, MD PhD says, "This particular [adenovirus] is unusual in that it can cause very severe illness in healthy young adults with no other medical condition. That is why this adenovirus stands out from the crowd."
That's the same type of thing they were saying when the 1918 flu pandemic hit. People expected the terrible influenza beast to be a killer of the elderly and young children. However, during what is sometimes called The Spanish Flu, 28% of all Americans were sickened. Many, many of them young and healthy before the virus hit. We had survived World War I, but a bigger enemy - infectious disease - was on our shores. 200,000 Americans died in October 1918 alone.
I'm pondering these things because other than allergies and sinus issues, I'm a healthy, active woman. It seemed bizarre to me that I could be prone to such a painful and distressing infection when I wasn't wielding chainsaws, rusty swords, bloody knives, etc. It seems my biggest risk factors are: shaving my legs and going to the gym.
One football team experienced it like this: One player had a small boil and wham! 10 football players and 1 volleyball player were diagnosed with MRSA. Two had MRSA infections severe enough to be hospitalized.
In the county next to mine, a high school student has been put into a drug-induced coma while the physicians try to fight the infection in his body. In Barberton, OH several cases were confirmed in students and a teacher earlier this month.
Often it is misdiagnosed. A football player from Austin Peay University went to the emergency room with a painful skin rash. He was misdiagnosed as having a spider bite. 48 hours later he was backing the athletic training room. His infection progressed and he wound up admitted to the hospital and put on IV antibiotics for 4 days.
To avoid it being misdiagnosed, the Barberton School district sent a letter home to parents describing it. It can start looking like an ingrown hair (as it did for me), then become more like a pimple, then a boil...and then...cellulitis sets in and you have a nasty, roundish pancake producing fiery heat. And pain. Lots of pain.
MRSA's usual mode of transmission is body-to-body contact, from one infected person to an open wound on another. But the condition can easily be transmitted from an object (a weight bench or towel) and then used by another person who has a wound on their body. It also spreads through carriers, those who have colonies of MRSA on their bodies, but are not infected. A common place for a colony is in the nose. Therefore, an infected person can sneeze on the handle of cardio equipment, the next person gets on, the bacteria is transferred to their hand. That person scratches an itch, perhaps too vigorously,...the skin has a slight injury and the virus enters.
For me, I think I've figured out some of how I've caught the bug. Thinking back over the past couple of weeks and looking over my workout log for confirmation, I went to the gym in the afternoon on more than one occasion. At that time of day, the high school kids come in swarms. Recently many local high schools have had to shut down their athletes' training rooms for disinfecting due to MRSA - those kids were coming to my gym to get their workouts done. So I've been in the sweaty company of possible carriers on more than one occasion. In spite of gym hygiene rules posted all over the place, these are kids and kids are often lacking in reading and following directions.
My gym supplies small towels for wiping down equipment, as well as some type of antibacterial spray. I have a copy of the EPA's list of approved cleaners that are effective against MRSA. I intend to find out if we're using a cleaner from that list.
From now on, I plan to use a towel of my own to put down on benches that I use. Wiping the equipment before and after just isn't cutting it. I also plan to Purrel my hands after using the dumbbells. I noticed that although I always wipe them with disinfectant after I use them, I appear to be one of the few that does.
The exercise room where the balls, Bosu & steps are is carpeted. It turns out that carpet is a very hospitable place for MRSA. While most of us just lay on the carpet to do our stuff, I think I'm going to have to use one of the yoga mats...and wipe it down before and after use.
I am sincerely hoping that I can control this and prevent this from happening to me again.
~o~
Workouts? HA. I was in too much agony yesterday to do yoga or anything at all. I was wiped out and slept/read on the sofa. Today, I woke up feeling like a zombie and decided to listen to my body. Rest. Rest. Rest. It's a good part of healing.
My antibiotic, Bactrim, is a rough one. The side effects are naseau, vomitting, diarhhea and headache. I didn't think for a moment I'd get them, because Zithromax is supposed to have the same side effects and never bothers me. I thought wrong. I have felt like I have a stomach bug since yesterday evening. No appetite, annoying headache and very, very queasy. On the bright side, my infection is definitely on the mend. I can sit here without even wincing. :)
