# How would my MRSA infection have played out historically? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 17, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-my-mrsa-infection-have-played-out-historically/582161 "2011-05-17T01:01:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-my-mrsa-infection-have-played-out-historically/582161/21 "2011-05-20T01:05:04Z")
CA-MRSA (community-acquired MRSA) is a bit more virulent than standard Staph Aureus, and tends to be a bit more aggressive about causing skin and soft tissue infections. It’s still pretty easy to kill with cheap, common antibiotics. HA-MRSA (hospital-acquired) is actually rather less virulent, but is resistant to more antibiotics than CA, and hits the immunosuppressed rather hard. It takes stuff like vancomycin or linezolid to kill it. What we worry about is CA and HA MRSA hooking up and producing a strain as virulent as CA and as resistant as HA. That would spell lots of trouble. In my institution, about 60% of the staph skin infections are MRSA, the rest are still sensitive to methicillin. However, we consider ANY soft tissue infection to be MRSA until proven otherwise, so automatically start the patient on an antibiotic that should cover most CA-MRSA strains. ---
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-my-mrsa-infection-have-played-out-historically/582161/22 "2011-05-20T01:21:39Z")
I remember watching some 20/20 type show where they took a kid with an antibiotic-resistant infection to Russia. According to the show, they dosed the wound with bacteriophages and it healed right up. Is that an expected outcome or was the kid really lucky? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-my-mrsa-infection-have-played-out-historically/582161/23 "2011-05-20T01:40:36Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > It seems a bit strange though that I’ve never heard of anyone getting a staph infection that wasn’t MRSA. At least, I haven’t heard of one in the last 15 years. > > Anecdote is not data of course. You probably wouldn’t hear about them - most staph infections don’t require antibiotic treatment at all, and even when they do, they are usually not referred with as general a term as “staph infections” . In addition to the bumps and redness that **WhyNot** mentioned, impetigo , boils and pimples are often caused by staph. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-my-mrsa-infection-have-played-out-historically/582161/24 "2011-05-20T18:20:45Z")
> [@Willcross](#): > > Wow, that’s a good point. I didn’t think about amputation when I was thinking about what historical treatments would be available. That’s a pretty scary thought. I’m glad I live in this era. Where we have more elegant medicines, from a more civilized time. 🙂 Although it was strep, not staph, in 1994 the then-leader of the Bloc Québecois (later to become premier of Québec), Lucien Bouchard had to have his left leg amputated due to the complications of the infection. It led to necrotizing fascitiis - “flesh eating disease”. Staph infections can lead to the same complication. I’m sure others have had to deal with this since, but that was a high-profile case that was rather recent. Modern medicine can’t always prevent that scenario, unfortunately. As an aside, it’s really neat that Google has newspaper archives! ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-my-mrsa-infection-have-played-out-historically/582161/25 "2011-05-20T19:06:47Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > It seems a bit strange though that I’ve never heard of anyone getting a staph infection that wasn’t MRSA. At least, I haven’t heard of one in the last 15 years. > > Anecdote is not data of course. Me! A few years ago I had a weakened immune system and had probably around a dozen or more staph infections in a two-year period. Well, they didn’t swab them and tell me they _weren’t_ MRSA, but they responded to non-heavy-duty antibiotics (Keflex? Or Ceftin? One of those two). Except for one that required IV antibiotics (of whose name I was never told). That one was on my chin and the swelling spread down my chin and up into my lip. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-my-mrsa-infection-have-played-out-historically/582161.md?page=1)