Helpful but not a sure thing, because of the number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria out in the wild. Much better is immediate application of an antiseptic–tincture of iodine is good; it stings and it stains, but it’s also fatal to pretty well all bugs–then cover the wound with something that lets it dry.
Just lost a great friend last month to a MRSA secondary infection that spread from a bed sore to his heart while he was in a crappy nursing facility. The last hospital did all they could and he was in gown and glove isolation while there, but the nursing facility was rife with MRSA as they used minimal protocols to isolate patients. It isn’t the hospitals that are only problematic as they at least have good protocols for the containment. A bedridden patient with a bed sore being turned every few hours by nursing facilities lackingg the infection reducing protocol is just spinning the chamber of the gun of MRSA. Once the spread of MSRA to the torso you are in very deep trouble. My friend was admitted to three hospitals and four nursing care facilities over three months without being discharged. He got the MSRA in the third nursing care facility. The hospitals just hot potatoed him from one place to another until he got very ill as they didn’t wish to tie up a bed with someone who just had an infected bed sore. The system failed by this attitude and my friend paid with his life. Some of the treatments were frankly medieval to try to get the antibiotics to work. He was kept conscious during horrible pain and spasms and uncontrollable shaking to give feedback to the doctors of pain responses. I sat with him for three hours during one the worst ones and it was wrenching for me and horrible for him. At the end, the doctors didn’t even tell him he was dying until days after they told us, truly cowardice on that point.
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Next time that you are at a Dr Office/Hospital/etc watch what they touch after touching you… They will usually wash their hands/don gloves before starting, but… There is rarely a change of gloves or washing of hands after touching the patient – they go on to type in their laptop; handle equipment; etc. Sometimes they then come back to touch you again. Your cooties just were transferred to stuff and the cooties of everybody before you were transferred to you.
I have worked in laboratories with unsealed radioactive material – when you can easily detect a few pico-grams of contamination, one learns really fast how to minimize the spread of contamination. The hands are the root of all evil when it comes to contamination control – it seems excessive, but changing gloves every time that you touch something that is potentially contaminated is the only way to really minimize the chance of spreading nasty stuff.
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Gentian Violet is an effective topical disinfectant that is widely available, but it tattoos the wound purple. Someone who went on an extended expedition in Bornea said it was essential.
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It feels barbaric to “like” your post, but it was meant to show sympathy to you and your friend for what clearly was an awful, horrible, terrible situation.
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Thanks for your kind words. The doctors just seemed frustrated and then resigned. At no point did they clue the patient in that he needed to fight. I found this the worst for me as I am a fighter by nature and to not know until it was way too late was the largest disservice they could have done. When they finally told him he rebounded for about a week and they even felt he could be sent to another nursing facility instead of hospice. As soon as he was moved though he fell into a coma and died shortly after. Modern medicine is not true care and a patient without an advocate is truly fucked.
Exactly. Most doctors haven’t learned to wash their hands, or so it seems…
Other factors include things like air conditioners etc. The only clean air ducts I’ve ever seen are the ones Bruce Willis crawls through. Sloppy maintainance on installations like these creates whole ecosystems inside them.
Ask your doc when his AC was cleaned and sanitized last. Chances are, all you’ll get is a very puzzled look.
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