Is MRSA one of those things that we have lost the ability to fight with our immune systems because we are too clean? Or is this one that has always been a nasty bug?
I have noticed that the less a kid plays in the dirt growing up the less able they are to fight off some illnesses. That could only be a perception though.
MRSA thrived in hospitals and nursing homes for years. That was the only place you seemed to have been susceptible to it. My FIL died from it after he had an operation.
The “bug” has become resistent to most antibiotics (there are still a few that can be used on it)...and I would say that probably overuse of antibiotics, in general, is what has made the bacteria that way.
Particular immune response, of course, would play a factor, but that would be specifically if someone was immune suppressed, like somebody had HIV or on steroid treatment.
Young men getting MRSA from gyms, etc. just probably has more to do with the bacteria moving outside of a hospital where it can thrive into a gym or school where the same type of conditions allow it to thrive.
IIRC, this superbug mutated from regular ones, after antibiotics were abused, in hospitals and other places.
This is the reason why doctors insist on people to complete a course of antibiotics, if ever they are administered one. Taking antibiotics to a point that is less than that required to completely eliminate the pathogen might lead to the surviving/ weakened (but not killed) pathogens into mutating to a form that can resist the antibiotic in future. This happens otherwise also, but usually, taking an antibiotic part-course, will serve the bacteria as a sort of vaccination, for it to survive the same antibiotic, in future.
I have noticed that the less a kid plays in the dirt growing up the less able they are to fight off some illnesses. That could only be a perception though.
Exactly what I want to know.
According to my wife, yes.
She wonders if it has to do with anti-bacterial soap.
My daughter, who is a RN, says if you kill off all the known bacteria the only ones left are the ones we don't kill, eg staph.
Who knows??