Diabetes & MRSA

I’m curious about what everyone things about these drug resistant staph infections. Are we as diabetics more susceptible to getting a MRSA infection? Think about it…we put holes in our fingers (as well as other parts of our bodies) several times a day. In my case, I work in a public high school and I’m responsible for all the computers in the building. So, I test my blood sugar and then get up and go work on someone else’s computer. Am I more likely to pick up a MRSA infection? What can I do (besides wash my hands constantly) to prevent this. I frequently spend a couple of hours going room to room, computer to computer, without stopping to wash my hands. Just curious to see what others think.

Elaine,

I just read GOOD GERMS, BAD GERMS last week, which is a great book that discussed MRSA in some detail. There is not easy answer now, because the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed and the wide spread use of antibacterial soaps has really worsened this problem.

Cultivating healthy bacteria in the niches where the superbugs are likely to invade is one helpful approach. When you nuke your biosphere with antibiotics or antibacterial soaps you leave a big, empty place where superbugs can move in and thrive. Save antibiotics for when you’ve been diagnosed with a cultured bug. Use narrow spectrum antibiotics rather than the newer drugs that kill everything (and teach resistance to the bugs that survive).

Beyond that, if you get any kind of boil that isn’t healing really fast, you might want to get it lanced (mechanically cleaned out.)

And–you knew I was going to say this–KEEP YOUR BLOOD SUGARS AS LOW AS POSSIBLE.

When your blood sugar goes over 200 your immune system pretty much curls up and dies. And if you get neuropathy in your vagus nerve, it also cripples the immune system because the vagus nerve is a huge part of reporting to the brain that an immune response is needed.