Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacteria that is resistant to many antibiotics and can cause a variety of problems that include skin infections, sepsis, pneumonia and bloodstream infections.
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TORRINGTON – Lingle resident Kaeli Johnson noticed it while she was on vacation, around the middle of February. Just a little bump on her arm, nothing to be concerned about. It would probably disappear in a day or two, she thought. Not long after she returned home on the 20th, the bump started getting bigger, and it hurt.
“There was swelling in my veins and it was painful, I couldn’t move my arm and I had a fever and chills” Johnson said. She went to the doctor but wasn’t prepared for what he told her. “On the 26th, I found out it was MRSA; an infection that was going down my arm and eating a hole in the tissue.”
The infection was localized to her arm, but the tissue eventually erupted like a small volcano leaving a small, raw wound about the size of a quarter. Untreated, the infection could have become life threatening, but because Johnson started treatment early, the prognosis is very good that the infection will eventually disappear.
“It’s slowly getting better, but I still need to keep it wrapped,” explained Johnson. “It has been a long process, going to the doctor every other day to pack it and getting shots. I was off work for a week and a half.
“There for a while I kept asking myself, ‘Is it ever going to get better,’ but it’s getting better
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacteria that is resistant to many antibiotics and can cause a variety of problems that include skin infections, sepsis, pneumonia and bloodstream infections. Because many antibiotics are ineffective against MRSA, treatment is long and usually involves different combinations of antibiotics.
“Usually we will take a blood culture and introduce different antibiotics to see which one kills it,” explained Torrington’s Community Hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer Zach Miller about treating MRSA. “It use to be that we kept you in the hospital for weeks and weeks. But now we bandage the wound and keep it covered.”