Could this be a staph infection?

The chances are good that you've got a staph infection if you've got a boil, a stye, swollen glands in the neck or groin, or that cut on your skin has turned swollen and red. Let's see what we can do about that for you.

Staph Infection

A staph infection (pronounced staff infection), is the short term for any infection caused by the family of Staphylococcus bacteria, but particularly by the black sheep of that family known as "aureus" or "S. aureus". These bacteria live on the skin around your nose, mouth, genitals, and anus. They aren't much of a problem until a cut, puncture, or other type of break in the skin allow those little varmints to get inside where they can do their damage.

Left to their own devices, the Staph bacteria can cause all manner of infections including impetigo, toxic shock syndrome, cellulites, and scalded skin syndrome among others. One variation causes urinary tract infections in sexually active females.

A staph infection is a serious condition although it is usually easily treated. Left untreated, however, it could be life threatening. No one is immune from the diseases that are caused by this bacteria. Newborn babies through the elderly are all susceptible to infection. Staph bacteria cause many of the most common skin and bloodstream infections, as well as pneumonia, in the United States.

Sometimes an infection can spread very quickly through groups of closely-housed people such as students in a college dorm or soldiers in a barracks, or even kids at camp. Poor hygiene, as well as the sharing of personal items owned by an infected person, can contribute to the rapid spreading of an infection.

While treatment of a staph infection used to be as relatively straight forward as a prescription of some oral or topical antibiotic, things are changing. We are now experiencing a breed of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Some of these bacteria have developed ways to prevents the medicine from getting inside of them, some have evolved little biological pumps that expel the medicine as quickly as it enters them, while still others have developed enzymes that actually destroy the antibiotic! Many times these resistant or immune bacteria have been able to evolve because people stop taking their prescription once the infection's symptoms abate but not before the bacteria is 100% destroyed. The bacteria survivors become "vaccinized", in effect, and can reinfect the original person as well as infect new people.

This is one reason why you should always take your medicine exactly as it is prescribed and for as long as the prescription tells you to. Otherwise you are contributing to the mutation of these bacteria which may result in there being no cure at all one day. Penicillin, for example, is now nearly 100% ineffective against most bacteria.

Most staph infections produce pus-filled pockets, called abscesses, which are usually located just beneath the surface, in the case of boils or a stye, but they can also form deep within the body. The skin above the abscess is usually red and swollen and feels warm to the touch. The abscess will eventually split, or burst, and the infected pus that leaks out can cause more infections on the skin that it comes in contact with.

If a staph infection is able to enter the bloodstream directly in can infect major organs including the brain, heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, and spleen. You should treat these infections with the respect that they deserve. Never self-diagnose or self- medicate. If you even suspect an infection than make a doctor's appointment without delay.