And the superbug bites again: More MRSI woes
By Christie Keith
April 17, 2008
I’m updating the story of Kyrie’s struggle with the canine version of MRSA, a multi-drug resistant staph infection, MRSI. (Sometimes that “M” is for “methicillin” but in this case, it’s for “multi-drug.” Lucky us.)
After her first round of antibiotics was over, the infection came right back. Knowing what I know today, I believe we made a mistake in antibiotic choice. Even though the culture showed that the strain was sensitive to Baytril, I’ve since learned that these bacteria become resistant to that family of drugs very easily, and experts are now recommending they not be used, no matter what the culture and sensitivity testing indicates.
And sadly, Kryie didn’t tolerate the Batytril well. She barely ate at all while she was on it; I had to hand-feed her to get enough food on her stomach to give her the drug. And the last week or so she was flooding urine while she was asleep, even though her urine culture was negative and her kidney function was completely normal. It was a nightmare.
The only other drug to which the bacteria was sensitive, at least on the first round of testing, was amikacin, which is extremely hard on the kidneys and has to be given intravenously, daily, in the hospital. I didn’t want to put Kyrie through that, but I also didn’t want to wait for another culture, as the last time, this thing spread like wildfire and caused her significant pain and suffering before we got her on the right antibiotic.
So her vet and I made the informed decision to try a three week course of chloramphenicol. We didn’t know if the strain of staph was or wasn’t sensitive to it, as it wasn’t in the initial sensitivity testing, but it’s very frequently effective against these bugs. So we gave it a shot.
The same thing happened as with the Baytril: One dose and her infection cleared up immediately, and this time, no side effects.
Tonight, two days after we finished the course, it started to come back.
I’m in a state of complete despair. I’ve done an enormous amount of research on this, and I feel almost hopeless right now. I know what I have to do — take her to a dermatologist, do another culture and sensitivity test against more drugs, and probably keep her on antibiotics for a much longer time — hopefully one that doesn’t make her sick. And Kyrie does have insurance, although so far I haven’t sent in her more than a thousand dollars in veterinary bills. I’m feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed. (Click on the photo, above, to see a larger image; and yes, it’s pretty gross.)
I’ve also researched medical grade honey, and am looking at the possibility of trying that topically and orally, but while it’s shown some effectiveness against MRSA infections in people, I’m skeptical.
And as seems to happen every single time she starts to flare up again, tomorrow is Friday, meaning it’s highly unlikely I can get her into the dermatologist before the weekend. So I either put her back on chloremphenicol, which will mess up the culture, or I let her suffer over the weekend, which I can’t do, or I hope her local vet can see her and possibly do the culture herself.
I’m not normally this indecisive, but this is breaking my heart and scaring the crap out of me.
I never wanted my dog to become the poster child for drug resistant staph in dogs. I really didn’t.
I’m so sorry Christie. Fingers crossed for Kyrie. This stuff is scary.
Comment by katie — April 18, 2008 @ 4:19 am
Sympathy and good thoughts for you and Kyrie.
Comment by Lis — April 18, 2008 @ 4:30 am
I’m so sorry Christie ! Can the med grade honey be used together with the antibiotics ? Maybe both would work better than 1.
Comment by Leslie k — April 18, 2008 @ 6:17 am
I am so sorry Christie.
IF Kyrie were a person, I’d recommend looking at the book - The Cure is in the Cupboard which is about Oil of Wild Mountain Oregano. I don’t know of anyone’s experience with Oregano oil and dogs, good or bad. And this is NOT the same as the spice in the cabinet.
I’d not stop vet treatment, but rather tell him and try using both, if you confirm others have tried it successfully with dogs.
It is a very effective natural antibiotic, antifungal, and antiviral. Capsules of it can knock out a sinus infection quicker than normal Rx antibiotics.
I see that medical is again selling a couple items that contain colloidal silver for infection treatment. One is in their burn treatment bandage for humans. Apparently they believe silver can prevent or reduce infections although they can’t patent it and make a lot of money.
Comment by Dennis — April 18, 2008 @ 6:27 am
I wouldn’t normally post an unsubstantiated “try this” suggestion but since you are feeling so desperate, I feel like I want to offer something/anything. I have corresponded with one person and read online the accounts of others who seem to feel colloidal silver is beneficial in a variety of cases and I wonder if it couldn’t possibly ‘cause no harm’ to try it? I wish I had something more concrete, based on something besides “I heard on the internets…” Will keep a good thought for you and Kyrie.
Comment by slt — April 18, 2008 @ 6:39 am
Suggestion: search for mrsa oregano dogs
I found:
http://www.bark-n-blog.com/200.....at-is-heh/
http://thewholedog.org/wholedognews/?p=22
Comment by Dennis — April 18, 2008 @ 7:26 am
What about using the medical microstatic product Betadine Povidone/Iodine solution? There is an ointment too. It is used as a surgical scrub, and available over the counter. I’d still ask the dermatologist vet about using it on the wound.
I see the company brochure mentions it as effective with mrsa and mentions safe use with dogs.
http://www.ispcorp.com/product.....iodine.pdf
Comment by Dennis — April 18, 2008 @ 8:03 am
Has CS or EO ( have read report that EO have been successful) considered? My heart goes out to both Kyrie and owner. Loo
Comment by L. Shank — April 18, 2008 @ 9:19 am
Christie - I am so sorry. Best of luck and good thoughts to you and Kyrie.
Comment by Anne — April 18, 2008 @ 9:20 am
So sorry Christie for you and Kyrie. Once this
is healed, please look into why this infection keeps occurring. The antibotics are only working
on the surface.
Comment by VJ — April 18, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
Oy! My gosh, I hope she feels better quickly and that this is the last go round. Even if you have to start antibiotics first, a biopsy may still yield valuable info. If there is some underlying process, the antibiotics should not mask that on a microscopic evaluation.
Unfortunately deep set resistant skin infections and cellulitis are occaisionaly an issue for bulldogs coming into rescue. I would add that we treat for an extended period of time. In some cases up to 6 weeks Unpleasant for some dogs who have sensitive stomachs but it is sometimes the only way to get all of the infection.
In general, until there is normal hair growth coming in all over the area, we do not let our guard down.
Does anyone remember STA lotion? It as a staple of large animal medicine when I was involved with horses. Equal parts isopropyl alcohol, tannic acid and salicylic acid. It was a tremendous surface disinfectant, very useful for small wounds to prevent infection in less that pristine conditions. The main draw back was that it stung for a few seconds until the salicylic acid (the basis for aspirin) kicked in.
Comment by JenniferJ — April 18, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
Christie I am so sorry. I know your despair so well. Let me tell you what we did in a similar situation. My dog had multiple surgeries on his neck and I am going to leave out the LONG details but suffice it to say he contracted a MRSA type bacteria in his neck from the Vets. He was in an unsanitized kennel and I am sure touched without gloves. What he took was a very high dose of Baytril (I gave 5 or 6 136mg a day) plus 300 mg of Clinamycin at the same time. My dog is about 95lbs. He took these for longer than is recommended, about a month if I recall. It worked. He tolerated it well with pill pockets back when pill pockets were good and had the cultures in it before Greenies bought and ruined the product. I also gave him oral cultures for a weeks in the midst of it all that the vet gave me from a tube that I would inject into his mouth and that helped a great deal.
If this didn’t work my vet was going to order some Medi Honey from Europe. This is evidently remarkable and is used in Europe. Our drug makers don’t want this approved here because then their drugs won’t be necessary.
Don’t discount the Baytril. It may be that the dose was not high enough. And yes the bacteria can mutate while on the drug which is why we gave the second drug at the same time. I believe two drugs is protocol for this reason. Talk to your vet aboout that. My vet’s father was an old vet who specialized in infectious disease and he consulted with his father. His treatment may be from the old school a bit but all I cared about was that it worked.
Hugs and prayers are sent for your dog’s full and speedy recovery.
Comment by Nicole — April 18, 2008 @ 4:38 pm
CLAY! Darn - I wish I could remember where I read the article or maybe heard it on NPR. Someone is doing testing on various clay’s and one of them killed the MRSA. They have to do more testing as to what clays work on what issues but they actually know what clay works on this. I also heard a story awhile back about a hospital testing a particular cleaning product and their instances of MRSA went down as it killed the germs. I will have to see if I can find the sources of this info.
Comment by cheryl — April 18, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
Here is an article on the clay:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....120514.htm
Comment by cheryl — April 18, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
Because my cat was diagnosed with herpes in the eye yesterday, along with the antiviral and antibiotic drops, the veterinarian prescribed interfuron and L-lysine to boost the immune system.
I was wondering if giving drugs to boost the immune system—especially interfuron—would help any. Just a thought.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — April 18, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
Just want to add how crazy I was getting with my cat’s eye sickness.
When you love an animal, it is horrible to see it suffer. especially when there is not a quick fix for a cure.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — April 18, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
I am really sorry to hear about Kyrie. I had a friend who had MRSA last fall and she almost died. It was really bad in Cincinnati - I really hope you get rid of it Christie. I’ll be thinking good thoughts for her.
Comment by Judi — April 18, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
Check it out:
Staphylococcus aureus and wounds: A review of tea tree oil as a promising antimicrobial.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
AJIC: American Journal of Infection Control. 32(7):402-408, November 2004.
Halcon, Linda PhD, MPH, RN a; Milkus, Kelly BA b
Abstract:
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria continue to be a major health concern worldwide. In particular, Staphylococcus aureus, both methicillin-resistant and -sensitive, are of concern in their ability to cause difficult skin and underlying tissue infections. Melaleuca alternifolia oil (tea tree oil), an essential oil, has demonstrated promising efficacy in treating these infections. Tea tree oil has been used for centuries as a botanical medicine, and has only in recent decades surfaced in the scientific literature as a promising adjunctive wound treatment. Tea tree oil is antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and has demonstrated ability to activate monocytes. There are few apparent side effects to using tea tree oil topically in low concentrations, with contact dermatitis being the most common. Tea tree oil has been effective as an adjunctive therapy in treating osteomyelitis and infected chronic wounds in case studies and small clinical trials. There is a need for larger clinical trials to further examine efficacy of tea tree oil as an adjunctive wound therapy, as well as improved guidelines for developing plant-based medicines.
Comment by Catherine — April 18, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Please have her checked for hypothyroidism. The blood should go to Michigan State University for accurate results. If any of the thyroid values are too low, it’s worth trying thyroid supplementation. When my elderly Collie went through a similar MRSA catastrophe, we started him on thyroid supplementation before getting the results back because he was clearly going to die despite antibiotic treatment. The results were miraculous, and the thyroid panel later confirmed that he was hypothyroid. He also turned out to have pancreatic insufficiency, and treating this with pancreatic enzymes has completely resolved some lingering skin/coat problems.
Comment by Susan — April 18, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
Hi Christie,
I am so sorry to hear about your pooch.
I’ve never been through this with my pets, but my daughter neearly died seven years ago from a drug-resistant bacteria.
The CDC was involved growing cultures and testing different antibiotics. After 16 days in a Children’s ICU and two surgeries, they gave her an antibiotic that had not been used in 12 years.
Because the bacteria and never been exposed to the antibiotic, there was no resistance to it and 5 days later we came home.
It may be the case that your vet should look to the past for a treatment.
Good luck! Ya’ll are in my prayers.
Comment by Karen Goodhart — April 19, 2008 @ 5:42 am
No suggestions. Just a lot of sympathy. Hope you find relief for Kyrie soon.
Comment by Cate — April 19, 2008 @ 6:41 am
I wanted to mention one further thing that happened while we were dealing with the MRSA. If an abscess has formed somewhere in the body deep in the skin or in an organ, the antibiotic is not going to penetrate the protective walls of the abscess. What could be happening is that there is an abscess somewhere with a fistula tract to the skin surface. So even though you are clearing up the skin, the bacteria hiding in the abscess come out after the antibiotic is finished through the fistula tract toward the skin and the infection returns.
This happened to my dog. He had an abscess form deep in the neck tissue with an extremely thick barrier around it. A microscopic fistula tract was present leading to the skin surface where the infection was visible. This is the bodies way of trying to expel the invader if it can.
The abscess was discovered and it was surgically drained and opened so there was no longer a hiding place. He had to have a drain in his neck after to keep the area open so the drugs could get all the bacteria. Had we not found this, the infection would have returned to the skin surface through the fistula tract after treatment for sure.
Also, he had cultures for both aerobic and anaerobic organisms and sure enough he had both. Anaerobic organisms survive within the body without air so they were having a grand time in the abscess. So you have to check for both. It was the pathologist who discovered the fistula tract because we did a surgical biopsy of the infectious mass that presented at the skin surface.
I am just throwing this out there as something to be considered due to the recurrent nature of the infection. You can check the body and organs with scans, perhaps a sonogram or possibly certain blood tests I am not sure.
Comment by Nicole — April 19, 2008 @ 8:15 am
I don’t know if this will help you and how MRSI in dogs differs from MRSA, my sister recently had MRSA pneumonia and was in the hospital for a week. They gave her IV combination of doxycycline and ceftriaxone after trying virtually every other antibiotic alone and in combination. Though these exact drugs may not be helpful, something else from their class maybe? Also, I know in humans that the approach for multidrug resistant bugs is (eventually) combination therapy. I’m so sorry for you and your dog, I hope it all works out.
Comment by Karen — April 19, 2008 @ 11:53 am
I want to thank everyone for the feedback and sympathy and suggestions on Kyrie. It made me feel all warm inside. :)
We did try essential oils in the beginning, and they had no effect whatsoever. I used a number of herbal remedies, salves, washes, and teas, as I’ve been studying essential oils and herbal medicine for over 20 years. This thing laughed at everything I tried, which is why I ended up at the vet in the first place. I’d never seen anything like it.
The initial diagnosis was a spider bite, however, when I investigated this, I found that we have no brown recluse spiders in San Francisco, that nearly all MRSI infections in dogs are initially misdiagnosed as a spider bite, and that was actually a highly, highly unlikely cause. Then the culture revealed not one but two strains of drug-resistant staph, one in very large numbers… so I think we can rule that out.
We did test her thyroid and it was a tiny bit low, although her vet said that was probably sick euthyroid syndrome, and I agree. We are going to run the full Michigan panel soon, but the truth is, Kyrie has absolutely zero symptoms of hypothyroidism. I’m not saying she doesn’t have it, but there is no sign of it — she’s skinny and active. But we will be checking.
I’m a confirmed colloidal silver skeptic. I’ve tried it for many things, including my own rashes, over the years, and it’s never done diddly for anything. And every time anyone I know mentions that the CS they tried had no effect, we’re assured that we were just using the wrong concentration, the wrong brand, we have to make our own, we have to use this kind… I’m sorry. At this point it would take some really compelling scientific evidence to make me reconsider colloidal silver. I honestly think it has, at best, a mild anti-microbial effect, as do many, many other substances that have far more in the way of evidence to support their use.
I have ordered some medical grade honey and intend to try that. I’ve also been looking into some of the clays. I agree that these bacteria wouldn’t be causing symptoms if Kyrie were completely healthy, and yet — she’s 9 years old, never been sick a day in her life, has been on a homemade diet since she was 7 weeks old — other than the slightly low thyroid reading, all her bloodwork is normal, in fact, her vet said she has the bloodwork of a one-year-old dog. Kidneys in great shape, heart sounds good, liver normal … no clues that she could have some lurking immune problem or underlying disease.
I’ll definitely keep everyone posted and thank you again for all your help!
Comment by Christie Keith — April 20, 2008 @ 12:51 am
“We did test her thyroid and it was a tiny bit low, although her vet said that was probably sick euthyroid syndrome, and I agree. We are going to run the full Michigan panel soon, but the truth is, Kyrie has absolutely zero symptoms of hypothyroidism. I’m not saying she doesn’t have it, but there is no sign of it — she’s skinny and active.”
My Collie had absolutely no signs of hypothyroidism either—except his inability to fight off the MRSA infection. A brief course of thyroid supplementation will not harm Kyrie even if her thyroid is normal. If I hadn’t tried thyroid supplementation with my Collie, his MRSA infection would have killed him.
Comment by Susan — April 20, 2008 @ 7:08 am
Christie, really sorry to hear about your pet.
David Winston is a very well-known herbalist and is speaking on MRSA at an herbal medicine conference in MA soon. He has been writing on the subject. I haven’t tried to treat MRSA but two things…slathering honey on the wound is a definite possibility and is non-toxic for your pet. However, doesn’t work for internal. I don’t know if dogs can handle Oregon grape root tincture. Check with some herbalist vets. But there is some very good work on the synergy of two compounds (one a very weak antimicrobial and the other an inhibitor of the MDR pump) in Oregon grape root. Companies are now working on using this idea from nature for the surfaces of tables and such. See David Winston:
http://www.herbalist-alchemist.....WMay08.htm
Comment by phytosleuth — April 21, 2008 @ 6:57 am
Christie, I’m really sorry to hear about Kyrie.
Re: hypothyroid; I have had two goldens who tested low normal for thyroid with no hypothyroid type symptoms. They were both showing compromised immune systems at the time - we did a short course of thyroid and both got better. Since then I believe it was Jean Dodds who wrote that there are different breed normals for thyroid
Re: treatment with Baytril
My doctor now uses Zeniquin in place of Baytril. We used it for 8 weeks on a suspected deep dermal infection which later turned out to be something totally different..however while on 8 weeks blood tests remained normal
O3: I think I read somewhere that hospitals are using hyperbaric chambers now for bad cases of MRSA and also hospitals are starting to use “O3” for sterilizing.
Your vet or local hospital might know if “O3” is available for use in animal treatment
Katie
Comment by Katie — April 21, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
Hi Christie (and everyone)
I’m so sorry to hear about your struggles to cure Kyrie - I know it can be heartbreaking to watch your baby suffer. I have a question for you all since my own dog has been sick off and on for years now and the vets haven’t been able to figure out what is going on exactly. Through my research, I’ve been to make an educated guess that she is at least defficient in zinc, which is apparently common in huskies and whose symptoms matched hers with itchy red skin that can break out all over when she has a crisis outbreak about once a year. Normally, it just stays on her paws and doesn’t fully go away. I have a very difficult time to keep her from licking them constantly and hate to subject to her to booties and the collar to stop her all the time, but unfortunately it is the only thing that works. She is currently having one of her outbreaks and is barely eating on her own. I’ve been reading about wild oregano oil and was wondering if it is something you tried. If so, did it work and how much did you give her…I bought a highly concentrated version of the tincture and I’m hopefull. Any advice anyone is willing to give is more than welcome.
Keep your Courage and Hope alive Christie and all my prayers for you and Kyrie
Comment by April — May 7, 2008 @ 5:31 am