About MRSA Symptoms

MRSA, or methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, is a type of staph bacterial infection that cannot be helped by the antibiotic methicillin or other penicillin types of antibiotics. It can be hospital acquired or community acquired. If hospital acquired, then you may have caught it while a patient in a hospital or nursing home or some other health care setting. Patients who have undergone surgery are especially susceptible. If community acquired, then you must have had very close contact with another person who either carries the bacteria or who has the bacteria. Athletes in a locker room are an example of people susceptible to this form of the bacteria. The bacteria enters through an open injury in your skin. It can cause pneumonia and sometimes it is deadly.

Initial Skin Symptoms

• The MRSA infection can, at first, look like a red rash of some sort, a type of cellulitis. It can look like an insect bite or present itself in the form of a boil. The area that is infected may feel warm to the touch, and it may hurt as well.

Progressive Skin Symptoms

• As the infection spreads and becomes worse, the boils or skin infection will fill with pus and may go deeper into the skin, forming an abscess. This will eventually need to be drained of the pus. You may have carbuncles, which are found in more than one spot with drainage. Impetigo is another form of MRSA, and it presents itself in the form of blisters that turn yellow and scab over. It can be found anywhere on the body, but the face is a common site. Impetigo very contagious.

Eye Symptoms

• If you have an MRSA infection, it may also cause a sty, which is an irritating condition in which the gland in your eyelid becomes infected. It can feel like you have a bump or something in your eye, but the gland is just swollen from the infection.

Advanced MRSA

• MRSA can spread from the skin and dig deeper into your body, infecting major organs. If you are an advanced case, you will probably run a fever and have chills; your blood pressure may drop, and you may ache all over in your joints. Headaches may become relentless. It can also cause you to become short of breath. The rash may take over your whole body, as well. If you have any of these signs and symptoms, it is urgent that you call your doctor or head to the nearest emergency room.

Other Signs and Symptoms

• If you have had an infection and your doctor has given you antibiotics, but it has not gone away after two or three days of treatment, it is likely that you may be infected with MRSA. Another sign that it is MRSA is if the infection has spread very quickly. MRSA can become very serious if not dealt with properly.