When bacteria go rogue

This is part two of my staph infection saga, written at week six. (See last week’s post for an introduction.) The “rogue” in the title refers to the fact that my normally benign skin bacteria turned against me. It is very creepy when bacteria appear to be eating your flesh. It’s especially creepy if you Google images of flesh-eating bacteria.

Week five. Week six is similar, minus raw area.

   What started as a tiny break in the skin on my finger grew day by day until I had a raw, stinging, pea-sized wound. The antibiotic ointment the doctor prescribed had no effect. The wound kept growing. After about two weeks of religiously applying the ointment, I quit. It seemed to make matters worse. All I could do was compulsively stare at it to see if my immune system would come to the rescue. It did, but it's been an extremely slow process. I was used to wounds healing in a couple of days.

I told myself I’d seek further treatment if the wound exceeded the
size of the original “blister.” It never did. To look at it, my wound doesn’t seem like any big deal. But it could be. I know of someone whose finger infection required IV antibiotic treatment 24/7, administered with a device strapped to his body. If the antibiotics don’t do the trick, his finger will be amputated.

This little trauma of mine makes me appreciate the forces at work keeping our bodies in balance, especially considering the thousands of bacteria and other organisms we naturally carry around with us. One false move…

I am now very curious about the bacteria that live on my skin and have sent a sample to The American Gut Project (UC San Diego), which will analyze it and tell me what kinds of bacteria I have. It’ll be a few months before I get the results back. I’ll let you know.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.