Someone close to me recently had a skin wound diagnosed as MRSA.  I, of course, freaked right out.  Most of what I had heard about MRSA was the news media running around in circles frantically waving their hands in the air squealing "MRSA!!!  OMG MRSA!!!"  For all I knew at the time, it was the first sign of the End Times.

I went home, dabbed rubbing alcohol at everything that looked even vaguely suspect (working outdoors and with animals, I always have a lot of little cuts and scratches) and started reading up.  The truth is… somewhere in the middle.

It seems that the biggest problem with MRSA (pronounced "mursa" or "mersa") comes with patients who are immunocompromised, and in cases where it isn't recognized as MRSA at first.  MRSA is, as the expanded name implies (methocillin resistant staphylococcus aureus) an antibiotic resistant form of one of the most common bacteria.

Staph causes skin and internal infections all the time.  Staph bacteria are present ("colonized") in about 1/3rd of healthy adults without ever causing any problems.  But if you get sick and your immune system's effectiveness is suppressed, or if it happens to get into a cut, or passed along to a child, it can get serious.  For many people, a staph infection starts as a little red pimple or dot, which is often misidentified as an insect or spider bite.  It can grow unchecked, and result in swelling and a boil or ulcer.

Regular staph is fairly susceptible to modern antibiotics.  Unfortunately, due partly to our overprescription of antibiotics and partly due to our profligate use of antibiotics in our livestock, some strains of staph have become resistant to antibiotics.  And thus, MRSA.

If you have a sore or open wound which grows and looks nasty, you should definitely have a doctor check it out!  In many cases a regular round of antibiotics clears it right up.  However, if your injury does not start responding to antibiotics quickly (within 24-48 hours) you will need to be pro-active about your own care.  Insist that they take a sample and culture it.  I have read many accounts of people who have lost limbs and eyes to MRSA infections because their doctor or nurse practitioner dismissed their concerns and refused to culture a sample.

Only by culturing a sample can your problem be definitively diagnosed as MRSA.  In a nutshell, they put a swab from your wound into a petri dish and let it grow.  Then they add antibiotics, and see if those kill the staph.  If not, it's MRSA.

MRSA is no more common or aggressive than "regular staph."  And it's important to remember that regular old hand-washing and hand sanitizers with rubbing alcohol will kill it dead, just as if it was a normal bacteria.  Which it is!  

The only scary thing about MRSA is its ability to run unchecked if it is not identified and treated promptly.  And, obviously, the potential for it to become resistant to ALL of our antibiotics.  In which case we really SHOULD panic.