Kyrie and the superbug: More on staph in pets
By Gina Spadafori
May 28, 2008
Christie’s Your Whole Pet column on the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com Web site is up, about superbugs and pets:
There’s a new and growing threat to your pets’ health, and while I wish I could tell you it’s just another Internet rumor, it’s all too real. I should know, because my dog is its latest poster child. I’m talking about something you might have thought only affected humans: drug-resistant staph infections.
We hear a lot about these types of infections in people these days, severe ones spread in hospitals and less severe ones spread in daycare centers, schools and gyms. Most human infections involve methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. In dogs and cats, the bacteria is slightly different — methicillin-resistant staphylococcus intermedius, or MRSI — but it’s otherwise pretty much the same problem: some strains of a common bacteria found in and on most dogs, people and surfaces have evolved to resist the antibiotics we normally use to treat it.
Here’s the rest. And here, again, is the link to the transcript of Christie’s interview with veterinary dermatologist Dr. Laura Stokking.
One the earliest comments on the SFGate.com piece insists that no skin problems occur with a raw diet. Well … not so much, considering that Kyrie hasn’t had anything but home-prepared meals in her life.
The problem with drug-resistant bacteria is system-wide, not a pet-by-pet (or person-by-person) issue.
I literally can’t believe two people saying this would NEVER HAPPEN to a dog on a raw or homemade diet. GUESS AGAIN, FOLKS!
I wish now I’d discussed Kyrie’s diet, but I had the opposite thought, that someone would think a nutritionally deficient diet led to the illness.
But here we have two dogs, Angelina and Kyrie, on different diets, one getting top of the line conventional care and a commercial diet, and one getting experienced holistic care and a raw/homemade diet, both getting this thing.
Which should tell you something.
Comment by Christie Keith — May 28, 2008 @ 7:59 am
I read the comments. Looks like the ever-so-helpful “It’s your own damn fault” club is on the job.
Comment by slt — May 28, 2008 @ 8:36 am
I usually don’t read my comments over there, because so many of them are from vicious animal-haters who say things I find profoundly disturbing. But I’m following them now and my head is just exploding at how many people are still beating this “holistic care will protect against every bad thing on earth kthnx” drum.
I think it’s time for my “Magical Thinking” article to get a new airing….
Comment by Christie Keith — May 28, 2008 @ 10:44 am
I always want to say:
Ever had a pet die? If yes, *gasp* - what did you do WRONG?!
Comment by slt — May 28, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Just curious—why is it that if I link to the Dogged site from Pet Connection I get an entry that is several weeks behind the entry I get if I go directly to Dogged? I’ve noticed this little glitch for some time!
Comment by Arlene — May 28, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
It’s not a glitch. The blogroll link is to Christie’s animal-related posts only.
She posts on a wide range of topics, and we sorta thought maybe people popping over from Pet Connection were interested in the pet-related posts, as opposed to, oh I don’t know, shoes.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — May 28, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
Diet has NOTHING to do with staph infections unless the dog is so mal nourished that its immune system is comprimised. Im sure that is not the case here.
BTW, cant help but notice that my prior comment has been deleted… So Ill make it again.
Vets that give pills as the first course of treatment for things like skin infections that are known to not be treatable by medicines that require blood to carry the meds to the infection sight are not good vets. They are commissioned sales reps for the drug companies.
They rank right up there with the idiots who told you that diets can control staph! Arf!
Comment by Bernard J. (Bernie) Starzewski — May 28, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
I suspect your prior post was tangled in the spam filter. I didn’t delete it.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — May 28, 2008 @ 6:05 pm
MRSA is from HOSPITALS - see the article below and many more at Medscape http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/573102
This is just one of a multitude of article on this medical education and journal summary website. Note - That pets are at risk from humans, more than the other way around. “When MRSA is encountered in pets, it is considered a reverse zoonosis, meaning that the pets acquired it from the people that care for them.”
From Medscape Infectious Diseases
What Are the Risks of Contracting MRSA From Domesticated Animals?
Posted 05/12/2008
Susan Sanchez, MS, PhD
Author Information
Question
What are the risks of contracting MRSA from domesticated animals, and do my family and I need to worry about MRSA contamination after my pets return from the veterinary hospital?
Response from Susan Sanchez, MS, PhD
Assistant Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Athens; Section Head of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Athens State Diagnostic Laboratory, Athens, Georgia
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a growing problem in people and animals. Once confined to hospitals, MRSA has been showing up more frequently in the community at large. MRSA infection recently killed a young high school student in Virginia, prompting media frenzy and sending panic-stricken parents looking for guidance from school principals and state officials on how to avoid infection.
Even though MRSA has been recognized for several years, unfortunately only sporadic and fragmented public information about this infection is currently available. MRSA in the United States has shifted in the past 8 years from being an infrequent hospital-acquired infection to an infection that is now spreading through the community, being routinely encountered at gymnasiums and schools and disproportionately affecting our young, elderly, and the financially disadvantaged. It was estimated that 94,360 invasive MRSA cases (the most serious kind of bacterial infection) occurred in the United States in 2005, with 18,650, or about 1 in 5, of those cases resulting in death. In this same study, only 1 Georgia hospital participated: Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Although hospital-acquired MRSA infections are very common, the same currently does not hold true for veterinary hospitals. Furthermore, not only are infections rare but so are asymptomatic carriers of MRSA. It is much more common to come across MRSA at the gym or at daycare. The fact is that although non-methicillin-resistant S aureus is a common and normal inhabitant of human skin, it is rarely found on the skin of common pets. When MRSA is encountered in pets, it is considered a reverse zoonosis, meaning that the pets acquired it from the people that care for them. Pets may become carriers of MRSA — and sometimes they become sick — if someone in the family they live with is a carrier or has an active skin infection. When the infection is cleared from the humans in the family, the transient pet colonization will end as well.
There are no reports of MRSA acquisition after a routine well-being/vaccination checkup visit from pets. Occasionally pets will acquire MRSA in a veterinary hospital (most likely during or after surgery) and during hospitalization (if they have indwelling devices, such as intravenous or urinary catheters). In these situations pets will be very sick as the new infection exacerbates their original problem. Patients like this will remain in the veterinary hospital until the infection is cleared and the animals are well enough to go home.
It is interesting to note that reports from Canada and Denmark implicate pigs as reservoirs for MRSA, with concomitantly higher prevalence of this infection in pig farmers compared with the general population in those countries.
Comment by Cheri Levenson — May 29, 2008 @ 5:26 am
“It is interesting to note that reports from Canada and Denmark implicate pigs as reservoirs for MRSA, with concomitantly higher prevalence of this infection in pig farmers compared with the general population in those countries.”
Comment by Cheri Levenson — May 29, 2008 @ 5:26 am
Perhaps this news will give pause to those raw feeders who include pork in the diet and who believe MRSA can’t affect raw fed dogs.
Comment by slt — May 29, 2008 @ 6:15 am
Cheri:
These dogs do not have MRSA. They have a different bacteria that does not affect humans, MRSI.
Comment by Christie Keith — May 29, 2008 @ 8:18 am
Christie,
I left this comment on your SFGate article. Since you dont always read the comments there, thought I would leave it here as well.
What about using collodial silver or Grapefruit extract? Bacteria do not become resistant to these. In your internet research has anyone used these for MRSI or MRSA infections?
Comment by Dog Lover — May 29, 2008 @ 10:06 am
I’m a huge colloidal silver skeptic. When it was in its first flush of newness, I tried it, and never saw the slightest benefit on my own skin rashes or irritations, nor my dogs’. I was assured every time it failed that I was using the wrong potency, the wrong method of prep, the wrong product, etc, but everything I tried in response to these “corrections” was equally ineffective. My research into the medical literature on colloidal silver tells me it has a minor anti-microbial effect, as do thousands of substances including many herbs, essential oils, teas, tisanes, extracts, salves, and ointments — a number of which I did try on Kyrie, to no avail.
Grapefruit seed extract has a very checkered research profile. When you look only at completely pure GSE, it has minimal anti-microbial action.
Bottom line for me on these two things is that there’s nothing “holistic” about them, as they’re just another form of anti-microbial, and these two don’t have much in the way of efficacy data to back them up.
I did use, as I mentioned here and in the article, medical grade honey. It does have good research demonstrating efficacy not just as an anti-microbial in general, but specifically against resistant strains of staph, even hospital strains, which are much more difficult to combat. And it worked on stopping a recurrence of Kyrie’s infection after her third course of antibiotics.
My recommendation, which is of course subject to change as I get new information, is to culture the minute you see anything to culture, use an oral antibiotic as indicated by the culture and sensitivity testing, and use medical grade honey topically. Then do a follow-up culture to confirm the organism is eradicated.
Comment by Christie Keith — May 29, 2008 @ 10:32 am
“Medical grade” honey? Does that mean it’s researched and controlled by FDA approved commercial interests?
Comment by Joy — May 30, 2008 @ 5:35 am
Look, there is no need to go bonkers over this.
To avoid skin infections, keep the dogs clean (as much as possible for dogs anyway) and when infections do occurr don’t bother trynig to treat it with pills or shots, use a topical ointment for starters. Dogs like to lick off this stuff though so you need to either keep them away from it with a neck cone or a bandage of some type. Medcial honey is fine! If obviously works but many other types of antiseptic (not antibiotic) topical treatments work too.
The entire reason we have these “super” bugs is that doctors of all sorts have “modernized” their practices to the point of using the last resorts first. The more we routinely throw antibiotics at the first sign of infection the more likely we are to come across a mutation that will survive it. Then it spreads and there is your superbug - of your own collective making.
Now a vet might want to use and antibiotic in pill or shot form to prevent the possibility of blood poisoning - thats fine. But any vet that throws systemic medicines at topical illnesses is an idiot not deserving of their DVM.
Unfortunately, that is not the message that the news crew is going to get from your docs… They will get the latest hysteria du-jure while they contribute to the problem at will.
Comment by Bernard J. (Bernie) Starzewski — May 30, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
While Im thinking of it.. What happened to the picture of the little English Setter in the lower right?
Replaced by lop eared bunnies???
Scout is very insulted!
Comment by Bernard J. (Bernie) Starzewski — May 30, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
Really, really interesting. My partner’s a vet (we’re in NC) and saw her first case of MRSI just this week.
Christie, could you post a link to any honey research you’ve found? I know it’s commonly used as a topical antibiotic/antifungal in some other countries - but when I Google it, I get a lot of pretty iffy sites. I’d love to know what sort of medical/vet research is underway.
Thanks, and congrats on Kyrie’s recovery - you both look great on TV!
Comment by LauraL — May 31, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
LauraL, here is an earlier post with the info I have:
http://www.petconnection.com/b.....und-three/
I certainly don’t claim it’s a panacea… they far overstated its importance in treating Kyrie on the news report!
Comment by Christie Keith — May 31, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
No, and I do appreciate that. But it’s always better to have as many options as possible in one’s arsenal, especially with MRSI.
I just hope some med/vet school undertakes a serious study of it soon. I’m betting there just might be something to it, but it’s a hard sell to make without substantiated data.
Comment by LauraL — May 31, 2008 @ 9:06 pm
My dog Merlo was feeling very ill. We were just getting ready to take him to the vet when blood starting spilling from his elbow, where he has callouses from laying on hard services. It wouldn’t stop. He had a temp of 106. They kept him to put him on oral antibiotics and fluids. I metioned that my young son had a staph infection (MRSA, that was cultured to be resistent to about half of the antibiotics on the list). I had used medical grade raw honey (manuka honey 16+). I thought his oozing was similar to my sons and asked them to culture it, but they thought there was no way. Turns out he did have a culture of both staph and strep (sorry I don’t know the strains). Anyway, my son has not had a recurrence, and I’ve been dressing Merlos site with a pad with honey spread on it. He is also on 2 antibiotics, but his wound is looking so much better. I can’t say it is curing him, but seems to not be hurting and he is feeling great. I keep the cone on him to keep him from licking at it. The vets keep wondering what the underlying problem might have been for him to get this. Still don’t think it’s related to my son’s problem. He does have allergies and a thyroid issue, but I am happy I had the honey on hand. I would always use it, just as an extra layer of protection!
Comment by Micci — October 15, 2008 @ 8:05 pm