Antibiotics, Probioitics, and Scary Infections

I am a huge fan of probiotic use. When I had that blasted campylobacter infection (at the very time that I gave birth to my son) they pumped me full of some very powerful antibiotics and let's just say the old back faucet had no off switch. For the next couple of months I ate a lot of yogurt and drank liquid acidophilus several times a day. This infection was horrific, and I am grateful to whatever higher powers there may be that my son, who was a little bit premature, wasn't infected with it. There was not an ounce of fat on his body. It would have killed him.

Germophobia May Make You Sick

I always say that the only place where one needs to be super-vigilant about microbes, unless one is immunocompromised, is in a hospital setting. Otherwise we are not doing ourselves any favors by not allowing our immune systems to become stronger by fighting off microbes that we encounter on a daily basis. There is a theory that this may be part of why so many children have asthma these days. Their immune systems have never been allowed to grow strong. Of course there are many other possible reasons for the rise in childhood asthma, such as the number of chemicals in the environment and even exposure to food additives such as MSG, which are deemed harmless but are actually anything but.

A Case of MRSA

More than two years ago now, one of the residents where I work ended up rubbing the knuckle on one of her toes raw after doing a great deal of walking. This woman was 98 years old at the time and has arthritis. The knuckles on her toes bulge upwards. At first this was just a minor irritation, but it did not heal. When we would help her with her showers we would apply Neosporin to the wound. The doctors also prescribed her a variety of antibiotics.

A few months ago, the wound was diagnosed as having a MRSA (Methycillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) infection. It still has not healed but she now has a wound care nurse who dresses it so it will not become more irritated. The MRSA also ended up infecting the tip of another toe, which had been rubbed raw.

I wonder if we accidentally provided the ideal climate for MRSA by our sporadic application of the Neosporin (only on the nights when we assisted the lady with her showers.)