An Infection I Just Couldn’t Shake
What happens when even the most potent antibiotics don't work? A personal tale from the front lines of the fight against potentially deadly bacteria.
Last fall, when a nurse hung a bag of the antibiotic vancomycin on my IV pole, I had no idea that it had once been known as the antibiotic of "last resort." When you go in for scheduled surgery, as I did, your doctors will warn you that infections are one of the risks. What they didn't say was exactly how common they are and how often they become life-threatening. Before it was all over I became just one of 2 million Americans who get some kind of infection in a health-care setting each year. Seventy percent of those bugs are resistant to at least one kind of antibiotic.
In recent days the media has focused on MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), one of the more dangerous infections, which is blamed for the death of a 17-year-old high-school football player, among others. But MRSA is only a small part of the problem. There were 18,000 reported MRSA deaths in 2005—just a fraction of the nearly 100,000 deaths from all hospital-acquired infections.
My first bout with one of these superbugs came in July 2006, when, a few days after surgery to repair damaged nose cartilage, I woke to find the entire right side of my face swollen and my right eye completely closed. My doctors told me to get back to the hospital immediately. I was worried, of course, and I looked pretty scary, but I was a healthy 43-year-old—surely, I thought, there were plenty of powerful antibiotics that would kill the bacteria and set me right in a matter of days. Over the next two months I'd find out exactly how wrong I was.
That infection eventually put me back in the hospital two more times, for a total of 14 expensive and debilitating days. My doctors kept me in a little longer each time, hoping to give the IV antibiotics more time to kick in. It took a final eight-day stay in September to finally quell the infection. Most of the time I was in pain, but not really scared. However, at one point during that last long hospitalization, my blood pressure dropped to 78 over 50, and it finally dawned on me that the doctors might not be able to kill the bacteria that were colonizing my body. The drop in pressure was terrifying. It was a little like being in a dream where you think you're running, but you're not moving at all. Just reaching over to press the nurse call button was a huge effort, and there was a distinct feeling that my body was losing a battle.
During that period my doctors tried various combinations of the most powerful antibiotics as they struggled to find something that would stop the infection from spreading either into the new cartilage they'd just grafted into my nose or, worse yet, into my bloodstream, where it could make my whole system lethally septic. (Luckily, that never happened.) They brought in a rumpled Peter Falk-like infectious disease specialist who patrolled the halls of the hospital like a medical detective, ordering up cultures for the many patients like me fighting an onslaught of microbes impervious to pharmaceuticals.
The pattern of infection and treatment became familiar. They'd hospitalize me and start an IV, and after a day or so I'd feel fine. They'd release me with the pill form of an antibiotic, and then within a week or two the infection would out-evolve the drugs, which usually don't work as well when they're not administered intravenously. After a while I could tell when those bacterial armies were building strength even before the swelling and redness made it obvious. It was like the beginning of a horrible flu, a draggy, muddy feeling that clouds the mind.
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Posted By: curlykin22 @ 09/16/2008 12:54:21 PM
Comment: Please, if this is not the correct department to email, forward it to the correct one as we really would like to be able to help people!
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Posted By: Nins @ 07/06/2008 11:49:50 PM
Comment: Did you know that if McCain is elected you will have to pay income tax on the value of the medical insurance that your employer gives you? Worse still, he is offering a tax break for people who pay their own insurance, BUT only $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families.
Let's say you have a family of four. Your insurance policy costs would be at least $1,500-2,500 per month under a self-pay plan, which cost more than employer group plans. So, you pay $18,000 -$30,000 per year for insurance, and you get to deduct only $5,000 of that. If you paid $25,000 for you insurance, you would be out of pocket $20,000 per year. This is FAR WORSE than the current system, where if you are self employed you can deduct 100% of you medical insurance costs.
So, if you're not self employed, you would stick with your Employer's plan. Employer plans for a family of four have a value of $900-$1,500 per month totaling 10,800-$18,000 per year. Surprise! On April 15th, you owe tax on all of that as INCOME to you. Say your bracket is 25%, and the value of your Employer medical plan is $14,000. You will OWE THE IRS an additional $3,500, and that's ON TOP of whatever monthly premium you already pay to your employer for your insurance.
Many analysts say that McCain's new rules would encourage employers to stop offering health benefits. If that happened, then far fewer Americans would be insured than are insured today, because what family of four can afford $18,000-$30,000 out of pocket per year for self-pay health insurance?
Furthermore, McCain's plan does not require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions of people who self-pay their insurance. People under employer group plans have all of their pre-existing conditions covered. This is a hugely unfair aspect of the current system. Insurance companies can afford to cover the pre-existing conditions of the much larger pool of people with group insurance, but they refuse to pay the pre-existing conditions on the smaller pool of self-pay customers. They have been allowed to price gouge the self-pay customers, which is a form of market manipulation that should be illegal.
So let's say one of your kids had diabetes and you have high blood pressure, then your employer stops offering insurance. You now have to buy your own, but you and your child are INELIGIBLE due to pre-existing conditions. Oh, yeah, they will let you buy the insurance, but you can't use it for any pre-existing condition until you have paid on time every month for two years. And you know what happens at one year and 11 months? You get a letter saying your policy has been cancelled. I have many patients this has happened to.
McCain's plan SUCKS.
It does nothing to help middle class working Americans afford or obtain medical insurance. In fact, it makes the current system WORSE.
Posted By: spencer jones @ 01/14/2008 2:14:26 AM
Comment: This was published in the Evening Telegraph, a British newspaper. For a FREE report on safe, daily colloidal silver dosage levels, please visit http://www.thesilveredge.com
Mans claims colloidal silver cured his MRSA infection...
http://www.northantset.co.uk/675/Man39s-MRSA-cure-claims.941888.jp
An elderly man who lived with a potentially lethal infection for two years claims he has cleared himself of the illness with colloidal silver.
David Sharman, 82, was infected with superbug MRSA in June, 2001, but believes determination and a regular dose of colloidal silver has helped him beat the infection.
He said: "There are so many terrible stories about MRSA in the news, but people seem to just talk about it and are not doing anything.
"I started to use colloidal silver and, after almost two years living with the infection and having regular check-ups, I was told I was clear."
Mr Sharman, of Exmouth Avenue, Corby, claims he contracted MRSA after a series of hip operations at Kettering General Hospital during 2001.
He said: "The wound on my hip became infected and the hospital informed me that I had MRSA before I was discharged for rehabilitation.
"I was determined to help myself and began using colloidal silver directly on my wound daily."
Colloidal silver is a liquid commonly used before the 1930s as an antibiotic treatment and is available at health food shops.
It works by attaching itself to a vital enzyme found in bacteria and disabling the offending pathogen, preventing it from reproducing.
Mr Sharman, who has three children Richard, 22, William, 20, and Sarah, 18, with wife Denise, said: "I could feel myself slowly getting better and the day I got the all-clear, just before Christmas 2003, was an extremely happy day for the whole family.
"Getting MRSA doesn't have to mean it is the end of the road and I really believe colloidal silver helped me."
Dr Richard Slack is a microbiologist based in Nottingham who works in infection control.
He said: "The silver is quite a good antibiotic used in burns units because it does kill MRSA and other bacteria that cause wound infections.
"There is absolutely a possibility that this has been beneficial to Mr Sharman."