Sully's tummy Results

[Sully]

This thread started in my Green eye Goop thread, for pics of his tummy and what was going on please see there

Just heard back from the Vet. The test came back positive for MRSA.. :grrr: He said none of the antibiotics in his office will work as it is resistant to all of them, and he will have a very hard time tracking down where to get the one or two that it is sensitive to
Now, I told him his tummy had improved significantly with the surolan, it is almost all gone, and he was surprised since it is supposed to be resistant to a ton of antibiotics. He did however take the scraping from a different area, under his tail where he had flakey peeling skin, instead of from the oozey sores on his tummy.
On Christmas Eve I gave him a bath and full groom, and paid close attention to his skin when blow drying him to see if he had any other areas of flakey skin, I found none.
So my question is... if the Surolan has cleaned up his tummy sores.. and he has no other evidence or lesions elsewhere on his body, does he NEED oral antibiotics ? Does the MRSA HAVE to be in the system or could it have just been in the sores so topical treatment would take care of it? The Vet basically told me since his tummy was better and there were no other areas, to wash him frequently with medicated shampoo to prevent any spreading, and IF I find any other areas of concern to let him know and then he will try to track down some oral antibiotics. Is this the right approach? Im not a fan of antibiotics so I really don't like to give them unless totally necessary..and if he has no 'spots' does he need them? but I don't want to mess around with MRSA..so.. Thanks in advance

 

[Jeannie]

I'd request an antibiotic as MRSA is nothing to mess around with. Sounds to me like he just does not want to track down the correct meds. Maybe he can give you a script for the pharmacy.

 

[Lori]

My mom's dog was diagnosed with MRSA a while after having his eye removed. He was switched from another antibiotic to Doxycycline after the culture came back. He is doing well.

 

[NessaM]

I'd definitely get treatment for the MRSA. Heaven forbid his eye become involved!!!

Also, I hope you gave that vet a verbal thrashing for pooh-poohing your original MRSA concerns and making you FORCE him to do the skin scraping. If I'm not remembering that wrong, you had to strong-arm him into doing the test - and obviously it was warranted. GAH! Seriously, what is the point of having medical professionals if YOU have to do all the research and advocate like nuts just to get your pet taken care of?

 

[lilly06]

Chloramphenicol is one of the big gun antibiotics that can beat mrsa. Sully may need to be on it for several months. Don't forget you are dealing with a super big here. It will be a long haul but you can get through it. One thing about chloramphemicol is tha you have to administer with rubber gloves it works well with dogs but can rake havoc on humans bone marrow. Be sure to disinfect everything you possibly can in your home. MRSA is nothing to mess around with.
Good luck. Sully can beat it.

 

[Sully]

I'd definitely get treatment for the MRSA. Heaven forbid his eye become involved!!!

Also, I hope you gave that vet a verbal thrashing for pooh-poohing your original MRSA concerns and making you FORCE him to do the skin scraping. If I'm not remembering that wrong, you had to strong-arm him into doing the test - and obviously it was warranted. GAH! Seriously, what is the point of having medical professionals if YOU have to do all the research and advocate like nuts just to get your pet taken care of?

I know Nessa.. I know. Yes I did make sure to insist on having a culture done the first time.

How come no lesions are coming out though? He seems to have no other symptoms of MRSA.. if we didn't do the culture and since his tummy is healed we would have no idea he had anything wrong?? Does it sometimes do this?

 

[Sully]

I called the Vet back to see if they can start tracking down antibiotics, but he is gone until January 3rd. The other Vet, who is the Vet we normally see, is in tonight so I asked the Vet Tech. to ask her to look at his file and call me back.

 

[JackandKelly]

I only know some about MRSA in humans, so I don't have much input. The one thing I cannot believe is it sounds like your vet sounds like he is bothered by tracking the right antibiotic down. Maybe I am reading something into this, maybe he wasn't really like that...seriously though, a RX to take to the human pharmacy will get you the right drug. When Jack had an infection in his chest incision for open heart surgery they started him on Doxy and Cipro immediately because they were afraid it could be MRSA and be in the sternum which can be deadly. After they got the results back they found the infection was not deep , it was only just below the skin and not in the sternum. They also found out is was just a reg staph infection. So he was changed to Clindamycin.

Anyways, my point is...I would do the antibiotics and do them now. The pharmacy should have some kind of Antibiotic to treat the MRSA

 

[Sully]

Ya I'm waiting for the other Vet to call me back so I can tell her I want antibiotics now

 

[chumleysma]

You don't "track down" an antibiotic to work on MRSA. You do a sensitivity. Since only a culture was done, the best he can do is look in a hopefully updated book for an antibiotic likely to work, no guarantees since there are many strains of Staph aureus. It sounds like he doesn't have the sensitivity discs to check. You paid for a culture, so the MRSA is grown and hopefully sitting in their fridge. They can send it to any lab, doesn't have to be veterinary, to do a sensitivity. Our local hospital micro lab would occasionally do these for vets. Results follow in 48 hours. The micro lab knows exactly what sensitivity discs to use for MRSA. It's the only way to know for sure. Problem is, the antibiotic/s that show MRSA is sensitive(hopefully) or intermediate sensitivity will likely be quite powerful. Oral use of these can cause nausea and vomiting or knock out the normal flora of the intestine causing diarrhea and pre-disposing him to another infection called Clostridium dificile, its awful. Just ask for probiotics. It's a tough decision, since the infection is already clearing, but you have to worry about the eye which I would think is top priority.

 

[lilly06]

I agree get the sensativity test and go from there. Without that you don't. Know what you se up against.

 

[pabusinesswoman]

Agreed on the sensitivity test.. at least in humans. I would think the same would apply to dogs.

When I had my sinus surgery.. I some how acquired a MRSA from the surgery. The took a swiping, plated it, and came up with the proper antibiotic to kill it.. as chumley said above. The plating takes around 48 hrs. There are multitudes of strains of it. It is not a fun thing to play with and it makes you feel miserable.

Since my sinus infections were so bad, I had used Cipro/ Keflex antibiotic groups so long that it was resistant to those strains. I am also allergic to penicillin and the e-mycin groups. So, that threw out most available antibiotics. They found that an older medicine that hadn't worked for me in years, Bactrum would kill this particular strain. It had been out of my system long enough that "critters" had lost their resistance.

:hugs: to your poor boy. I hope he is feeling better soon.

 

[chumleysma]

The reason chloramphnicol is such a good drug to use on MRSA is that MRSA is a bacteria which evolved from human antibiotic abuse, both from the overprescribing by doctors and from patients taking half their dose, then stopping. The theory of evolution (only the strongest survive in nature) applies to bacteria. When exposed to an antibiotic, the genetically weak die off first and the genetically coded to resist an antibiotic remain to reproduce when you stop an antibiotic in mid-treatment. These patients ended up in the hospital with full blown infections resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics, especially the penicillin family, needing stronger antibiotics usually given IV (hospital only). MRSA then spread throughout hospitals. It used to be a hospital problem, but not anymore. It has spread to the community, locker rooms, and now our poor dogs. The beauty of chloramphenicol is that humans could not abuse it, because docs couldn't prescribe it, since studies showed it caused aplastic anemia (stopped bone marrow from producing the cells we need to live) in a small percentage of the human population. It doesn't do this in dogs. Now the vets have an antibiotic in their arsenal that's less familiar to MRSA. That's not to say it will work on all the strains. Only a sensitivity will tell you that. Most important, there are still antibiotics that will work. They're just stronger, more expensive(paying for research and development) and worse side effects (not always). My dog handled chloramphenicol quite well. MRSA is not the only bacteria that evolved to superbug status. Vets are just as concerned when they hear Pseudomonas or VRE (vancomycin resistant enterococcus).