Staph areus: symptoms, causes, complications and management.

Greetings to everyone, Its a new month and I'm pretty much happy to still be making post on this platform, I consider it as a privilege. Far from that, I've written some great articles on some disease conditions, you can have a look at them on my blog.

For today, I'll be writing about a well known bacterial infection that affects the skin and the urinary tract, its called Staphylococcus areus, simply known as staph. I'll be taking a look at its causes, symptoms, causes, complications, as well as its management. Have a good read.

What is staph areus
Staph areus is a bacterial infection caused by the gram positive bacteria, staphylococcus areus. Its a relatively mild disease that can get fatal if the bacteria spreads to deep tissues of the body like the bones and the blood.

Staph is usually transmitted when the skin comes in contact with the bacteria, either through skin to skin or from an object like towel, inner clothing carrying the bacteria.

According to a 2017 report from the United state, about 119,000 people suffered life threatening complications as a result of staph infections, The most common complication being sepsis.

Staph can become fatal when the bacteria finds its way into the bloodstream, this can lead to onset of some chronic conditions like impetigo, cellulitis, sepsis, as well as toxic shock.

Symptoms
The symptoms of staph are dependent on the area of the body infected. Generally, the observable symptoms in most staph infection, irrespective of the type are listed below;

1. Redness and swelling of the skin
2. Painful rashes
3. Pruritus boils
4. Dehydration
5. Low blood pressure
6. Meningitis, endocarditis and pneumonia are observed when the infection spreads to deep tissues.
7. Stomach pains
8. Nausea and vomiting
9. Joint swelling
10. Muscle ache
11. Pus filled blister.

Causes
There's only one likely cause of staph, i.e skin contact with the bacteria, either from person to person, or from inanimate object to person.

In addition, some individuals are more at risk of contracting the infection than others, this individuals are referred to as immuno compromise individuals. These are people with preexisting illnesses like diabetes, HIV/AIDS, cancer, respiratory diseases (emphysema, TB), and people with recent surgery.

Many persons can carry the bacteria on their skin for many days without knowing, hence, helping in the fast spread of the disease. Such persons are usually asymptomatic, but could later develop severe complications.

Management
The management of staph is possible with the use of some broad spectrum antibiotics. In cases of resistant strains, sensitivity test can be carried out on the affected part so as to ascertain the most potent antibiotic to use in that regard.

For uncomplicated cases of staph, drugs like ceftriaxone, docycycline, vancomycin, cipofloxacin, nafcillin, and cefazoline can be used.

The major challenge in the management of this infection, is the issue of antibiotics resistance. Over the years, staph areus has grown resistant to some popular antimicrobial agents, a classical example is methicillin resistant staph areus (MRSA) which is a strain of staph resistant to the antibiotic, methicilin.

Complication
Major complications can arise from staph infection if the disease is not treated early. A common complication is sepsis. Sepsis affects the whole body and only occurs when staph infection finds it way to deep tissues and subsequently, the blood.

Another major complication that may arise from a staph infection is scalded skin syndrome. This occurs when some cartilage proteins produced by staph weakens the bond in the various layers of the skin, leading to formation of blisters on the surface of the skin. This blisters can spread wide to other areas of the skin forming a scald skin.

Conclusion

All details regarding staphylococcus areus cannot be exhausted in just one writing. The disease is indeed a very broad one, partly due to the advent of some newer strains linked to staph areus.

Staph can be effectively managed if diagnosed early. Just like I've previously mentioned in most of my post, early diagnosis is the key to the effective management of any disease condition.