This is totally of topic but wanted to know if anyone else has dealt with this. My teenage daughter came to me 2 days ago with what looked like a spider bite. I didn't think much of it. Yesterday it was swollen and very red. She said it was painful. Took her to the docter and he said it's staph. He prescribed 2 antibodics and is treating it as MRSA. He phoned today and asked how it looked. It now looks like a huge gross boil and it is oozing. I am taking her to Dr. ofc tomorrow to have it lanced. I'm wondering if I should skip the dr ofc and take her to the hospital. The doctor is acting like it's just one of those things and says she is fine for school as long as the wound is covered and she washes her hands. Basically it has progress in 3 days from something that looked like a little bite to a very yucky swollen boil. Sorry if I am grossing anyone out! My daughter is upset and wondering how this could happen because she is a germ freak and really takes good care of herself.

Though I have no experience with Staph personally, my husband's public school has. After total disinfection his school remained open, but I know with other schools here in Georgia that was not the case.

This http://www.cdc.gov/Features/MRSainSchools/ is an excellent source of information. I would continue to follow your doctor's advice and just proceed to him in lieu of the hospital. Speaking as a former EMT, a doctor in a doctor's office can drain pus just as well if not better than an ER doctor.

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Thanks for the info! She went to peditrician today. All went well. It's bandaged because it is leaking. I read the link you sent and I feel better being a little more informed. It is amazing how this staph bacteria is everywhere and how it effects kind-of randomly. Luckily we caught it early. I'm exhausted from disinfecting my house top to bottom! Have a great day!

pls tell your daughter that many of us are thinking of her and wishing her well. these staph things are so bizarre, but becoming comonplace.

if my mom were alive she'd be suggesting a little ammonia or rubbing alcohol, telling you to keep it uncovered and let nature take its course.
andrea

andrea j.
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My daughter (13 years old) had a few MRSA outbreaks. I was surprised to hear that word come from the doctors mouth. It started a few months ago w/ what I thought was a clogged tear duct due to eyeliner. But when you pulled the eye down a bit you could see a big white oozie spot, we put hot compresses on it and it came to the top, came out and all the swelling went down. A few months later it started in the little crux of her ear, again we attributed to hair products but this time the spot swelled so badly it started to close the ear off and her glands swelled in her face and neck. IT happened so quickly it was only about a day or two when it started to look really bad. We did the hot compress thing, planning on taking her to the doctor the next day and tons of stuff came out...you could see a yellow spot surrounded by white. We took her to the doc and by simply their touch, more stuff came out and they put her on Clyndimicin for 10 days, which totally killed her stomach. But the infection went away the glands came down immediately. The next time was after she had a nasty cut/bruise from a soccer game on her shin..(even w/ the shin guards). The spot swelled but I didn't think anything of it, no real boil looking thingy and I just figured that was a bad spot to have a open cut from a cleat. It took a while to heal but in the meantime and right before we went to Aruba, she tripped and hit the corner of her mouth on (get this) the corner of the cable box. This is why we say "don't run in the house". No open sore, just she bit her lip on the inside and had a small bruise in the corner of her mouth. She wears braces so I figured it would be irritating to the inside of her mouth. After a couple of days the bruise started to get hard and like a pimple so I took her to the doc and sure enough back on the same antibiotic for 3 weeks this time, 3 times a day. The doc explained that in many people the infection lives in their nose and it makes them high risk for this infection and to put bactrum on a q-tip and rim the nostril. So when there is some sort of trama on her now we watch for signs like swollen glands etc. She is not one to have teen break outs either and I cleaned like a crazy person and always wash their sheets w/ bleach, the rest of us, including her two brothers and her team-mates and friends did not get any kind of infection from her. It was very weird and I'm def. on alert now and so is she.
I hope this helps, I'm glad things worked out w/ your daughter. Its weird how there is all of these crazy infections out there, even w/ the cleanest person/family I guess you never know.

Thank you Corinne for sharing your story with me. My daughter is also 13 and I showed her your post. It was so nice for her to know she is not alone that other girls have gone through the same thing. Do you think that once they have this they are more suseptible for repeat cases? It sounds like your daughter has fought this pretty hard. Was she self-concious about it?