Were there early signs of the infection that you ignored or did you just wake up one morning with a bunch of bad looking skin?
Just had a spider bite me on Saturday in an old house stuffed with books where I was working. Found an MD near Ft Worth who promotes this mini stun gun therapy that apparently neutralizes the venom much better than antibiotics. Old friends up in New Waverly had done the stun gun therapy before. It is reduced voltage - only 26,000 volts, not 100,000 or more. Let the wife zap me 4 times last night. She says she didn't enjoy it but you never know. Everytime she hit the button I was like G*#@%$! Son of a B%$#*^%! I can't imagine getting hit by a cop with a higher voltage and still being conscious. The swelling at the bite site is going down and I'm mostly not delirious anymore. About 50% better. Not sure if this would also work on staph but I am going to call Dr. in a few minutes and I will ask.
Both spots started out with what looked like small boils/gigantic pimples. They were more uncomfortable than they were painful. I first noticed them on Saturday morning while at work. The area around the spots was hard, not soft, so that is part of the reason I thought I could be wrong about them being conventional pimples or boils. I figured they would just go away by themselves. Never in a million years did I think I had something like Staph Infection. But I guess it's a better alternative to spider bites.
for me it just got worse relatively quickly over the span of 48 hours. like it started as a red spot the size of quarter that was pretty painful, like a really bad pimple that doesn't come to a head. then it was kind of like the infection started rolling downhill the 2nd day. the red spot grew in diameter from baseball size to softball size then to about 6 inches in diameter when i finally went to the ER at about midnight. i also had a minor fever and chills and i was googling images of brown recluse bites (which is what i thought it was) and that really scared the crap out of me. ER doc said a lot of college kids would come in thinking it was a spider bite and it was more than likely antibiotic resistant staph.
Symptoms of pr0n surfing. Lubricate your palm with a moisturizer of some sort next time. Al Gore's internet rulz.
I talked to my spider bite Dr. and he knew all about staph as well. He said Dr's get the two mixed up all the time and the only way to know if it is staph is to do a culture. He also said that Vitamin C helps with both. Both the venom and the staph deplete vitamin c and limit the body's ability to transfer electrons ie energy and thus limit ability to heal. I also use tea tree oil all the time - great antibacterial. More vitamin c helps so the body can begin again to transfer electrons and heal. The electrical stun gun breaks down the venom so it stops doing damage and can be carried off. He also said there is a Russian based technique called SCENAR which is an electrical therapy for staph and other type infections. It works on the same principle as the stun gun/venom technique, only hopefully gentler. I googled SCENAR and there are lots of choices - the devices are for sale on ebay. Esp. since antibiotics are not working on the resistant strains I would take a look at these devices rather than wait for perm damage to occur.
About 2 years ago, I had this place on my chest that I thought was either a really bad pimple or a boil. I made the mistake of trying to squeeze it and it was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. It actually made it worse and I went to the doctor the next day. It turned out that I had an infected hair follicle. I was given an antibiotic and it started to go down and eventually went away; however, for like 3 to 4 months afterward, you could still see where it had been on my chest. Hopefully, something like that won't ever happen again to me.
Did he specifically say that it was useful in Staph infection? Destroying a chemical is very different that destroying a form of life. BTW every single online study I can find seems to indicate that the stun gun method has been proven essentially ineffectual in controlled trials.
Be careful with doctors that prescribe "non-mainstream" modalities of treatment. Most of it is crap. Doctors should practice evidence based medicine, i.e. there are studies that show that a certain type of treatment is effective and not due to placebo alone. Ask your doctor if he can provide evidence from a reputable journal that scenar or electrical therapy is useful for bacterial infections. (or spider bites for that matter)
