Staph?!

Staphylococcus aureus, to be more specific. Yeah, sounds lovely. For those of you who have been following our illness streak over the last few months.... here is an update. For those of you who are not medically inclined, or have queasy stomachs, you may want to skip this blog. It ain't pretty, but the good news is that we are hopeful it's finally being wiped out!! But I promise, no pictures with this post!! =)

Our family has had a series of boils since last May. We've been taking precautions like putting Dettol, a brand of disinfectant, in the kids' baths, washing towels more often, changing sheets more often, using paper towels for hand towels, but it's not been enough. Or maybe we didn't do all of that long enough?!?! I mentioned in a recent post that Christina got another boil.... it was big and very painful, and we soaked it in hot water quite often. We kept it covered with some great band-aids that we brought from the states, and put neosporin on it. I called our pediatrician about it, since he is aware of the other boils we've had, and asked if this time they could really consider putting the whole family on a round of antibiotics to kick this. We also asked some friends who are missionaries out here - the husband has a Doctorate of Pharmacology, so we wanted to know his opinion. I guess if you don't use the right kind of antibiotic, and don't treat the family long enough, it may not really kick the cycle and it can come right back - so there has been debate about whether or not it's worth it for us to treat it that way.

We had the whole family tested for staphylococcus in November, to see if one if us was a carrier (you can be a carrier without becoming sick - 30-40% of adults have staph in the nostrils, which is apparently where it colonizes). Kevin was just recovering from a boil in his nose, but he tested negative for staph (I believe it's because he was still finishing his antibiotics and antibiotic cream for the nose)! He was on antibiotics because a boil on the face is very dangerous since it can enter the blood stream and go immediately to the brain. Kevin was the only one who tested negative. The rest of us all tested positive!! But, the debate continued as to whether treating the whole family with antibiotics would really wipe it out....

When Christina got that boil earlier this month, our Pharmacologist friend suggested a particular round of antibiotics as well as antibiotic cream to be put in the nostrils, to kill the colonization. Our pediatrician consulted an Infectious Disease Pediatrician in D.C. and they both came up with the same treatment as our friend. However our friend suggested a 21 day course, and our doctor felt that 10 days would be enough.

Meanwhile, Christina got 2 more boils!!! I could have cried for her. But we started the antibiotics, and I put the prescription antibiotic cream right on her boils, so they didn't get very big, and started opening, then healing rather quickly. We are thankful for that. We don't see any more boils forming now!!

Again for the medical people who are reading this, we are taking Septrin D.S. (Trimethoprim BP and Sulphamethoxazole) and Bactroban (mupirocin) ointment in the nose - both twice a day. We have had several other medical friends mention to us that they didn't think 10 days was enough to kick something like that out here, that we would be better off doing closer to 3 weeks of the antibiotic.....

SO we decided we'd rather be on the safer side. We went back to the chemist and asked for 10 more days of medicine. This is definitely NOT something you can do in the states! Here you can get prescription medicine over the counter. You just tell them you need Ciprofloxacin or whatever, and they tell you the correct dosage and then ring it up. However, we rarely ever do that without consulting our doctor. I may be a medical-wanna-be (I love the info but can't take the gore), but we don't take medicine lightly! On the other hand, it is very helpful to already have broad-spectrum antibiotics in our house, because if we call our doctor after hours, sometimes he will recommend to start a round of something immediately and we can do that, without having to go out late at night (which can be dangerous here). It's also helpful to travel with antibiotics if someone in the family gets really sick and we can't get to a doctor. We can usually reach our doctor by phone, and he gives us advice that way. Anyway, it's a very different protocol than in the US!!

SO we truly hope this is the last you'll hear about boils from us..... It seems we've dealt with a strange list of ailments since moving out here in 2004.... amoeba, rota-virus, bilharzia (schistosomiasis), round worms, cysts, boils, staph.... we hope that's the end of the list for this term!!!

Thanks for the emails and concern about our health!