Re: MRSA after a c/section-scary
From: Raymond Stephen (stephen.raymond@dhhs.tas.gov.au)
Sun Oct 28 15:31:13 2007
If this collection had been drained on the day it formed, none of this
would have happened!
Steve
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From: ob-gyn-l@obgyn.net [mailto:ob-gyn-l@obgyn.net] On Behalf Of
--
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GIN11153@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, 28 October 2007 8:16 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list OB-GYN-L
Subject: MRSA after a c/section-scary
http://tinyurl.com/2ncx6u <http://tinyurl.com/2ncx6u>
IN FOCUS
October 18, 2007
Hospitals and Superbugs: Go in Sick... Get Sicker "All seemed fine,
except "my temperature never went back to normal after surgery," Gehrke
says. During her first few days at home, she had a low-grade fever that
hovered around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and she
noticed a lump had formed below her incision. By the fourth day, the
lump had ballooned to the size of a lime, her fever had jumped to 103
degrees F and her incision was intensely painful. "It was like someone
had taken a burning match and stuck it inside" the cut skin, Gehrke
says. She immediately went to see her doctor, who took out the staples
(as is customary a few days after a C-section) and examined the growing
bulge under the wound. He dismissed the pain as normal..." ...
MRSA causes some 94,000 invasive infections in the U.S. each year,
resulting in almost 19,000 deaths-more than those caused by human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-said a study published this week in JAMA
The Journal of the American Medical Association. And "the majority of
these cases appeared to be health care-acquired," says Elizabeth
Bancroft, a medical epidemiologist with the Los Angeles County
Department of Public Health and author of an editorial that accompanied
the study.
Learning the infection was MRSA, Gehrke's gynecologist immediately
switched her to a stronger antibiotic and put her on bed rest; nurses
from the Visiting Nurses Association came to her house daily to pack the
wound in gauze and check her vital signs. But the swelling remained and
the wound continued to ooze pus.
After three months of this, the wound still had not healed. At the
advice of her ob/gyn's partner (who was filling in for her doctor that
day), Gehrke went to see doctors at Indian River Hospital's wound care
facility. They told her she needed a second operation to remove the
tissue destroyed by the infection. Surgeons reopened her incision and
discovered a festering infection that had caused extensive damage. It
was "like looking at a hole in your belly [that is] seven inches wide
and six-and-a-half inches deep," she recalled in an interview with
ScientificAmerican.com. After the operation, Gehrke stopped seeing her
ob/gyn, but continued to be treated by the wound care physicians and
visiting nurses. She says she was mostly bedridden for another three
months because it was painful to move while attached to a wound V.A.C.,
a suction device that aids healing by vacuuming pus, blood and other
fluids.
Gehrke survived but it took seven months when all was said and done for
the infection to clear up and the wound to heal. She says she was
bedridden for a total of six months and racked up $13,000 in
out-of-pocket expenses for home care and procedures associated with her
infection.
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