Uninvited from family functions

[Xantippe]

um, what?

mrsa can be controlled by disinfection. you’ve admitted to rarely cleaning your shower and not wanting to disinfect your home even once, so I’m willing to bet that the reason your family is constantly getting flareups is because you’re constantly reinfecting yourselves. if your dr doesn’t seem at all concerned and isn’t giving you the advice that state health depts do - that you should be disinfecting your bathroom, sheets/towels, and other commonly touched surfaces (doorknobs, sink handles, remote controls, computer keyboards, etc) on a daily or near-daily basis - you should find a new one asap. he’s obviously telling you what you want to hear but it’s not good medicine. and even without an active infection, mrsa can still be transmitted to others because apparently it hangs out in noses, so someone doesn’t need to touch your active wound - you can pass it to them just by wiping your nose and touching a doorknob. also, pets can get it or harbor it, and need to be treated as well.

That’s a very good point. There is more that the family can do to speed up the recovery process.

A few years back, I was horrified to discover that a younger relative that my kids and husband and I were supposed to share a hotel suite and bathroom with had active staph and nobody had thought to mention that to us before the trip. (She wound up staying in another room, thank goodness and there was no transmission.) People really don’t like having things like that sprung on them as surprises.

 

[NFPWife]

I use the same shower as my boys (that I NEVER clean) and neither I nor the other 2 boys have had an infection in months.

Wait, WHAT?! Even without an active infection in the home, the shower needs cleaned. Regularly. I hope you mean that you, personally, never clean it and it’s a chore assigned to one of the kids. Personally, I would be bleaching the whole house. Every. Single. Surface.

Honestly, it’s not the MRSA that concerns me, it’s that you seem so low urgency about it. I had a friend who’s son had two outbreaks of MRSA and she was vigilant. They cancelled a vacation because he wouldn’t be able to be in the pool or ocean and those are his favorite things to do on vacation. She also bought him a sleeve that he wore over the bandages on his arm.I never had a single worry about being around him (or the family) because I knew she was taking every precaution and I stood no risk of infection.

Perhaps you’ve dealt with this for so long that you’re fatigued to the situation and that fatigue presents as general unconcern. I think that translates to a laissez-faire attitude that is increasing your extended family’s urgency and concern. They don’t trust you to take the right level of precaution or exclude yourselves if someone has an active outbreak so they’ve taken the measure of excluding you. If you can educate them and agree to take EVERY precaution necessary, they might soften. The bottom line is that they aren’t going to lower their urgency until you increase yours.

 

[NFPWife]

um, what?

mrsa can be controlled by disinfection. you’ve admitted to rarely cleaning your shower and not wanting to disinfect your home even once, so I’m willing to bet that the reason your family is constantly getting flareups is because you’re constantly reinfecting yourselves. if your dr doesn’t seem at all concerned and isn’t giving you the advice that state health depts do - that you should be disinfecting your bathroom, sheets/towels, and other commonly touched surfaces (doorknobs, sink handles, remote controls, computer keyboards, etc) on a daily or near-daily basis - you should find a new one asap. he’s obviously telling you what you want to hear but it’s not good medicine. and even without an active infection, mrsa can still be transmitted to others because apparently it hangs out in noses, so someone doesn’t need to touch your active wound - you can pass it to them just by wiping your nose and touching a doorknob. also, pets can get it or harbor it, and need to be treated as well.

your entire family is currently acting like typhoid mary. let me ask you this - if you haven’t told anyone your whole family is chronically sick, why would you expect anyone you ever came in contact with to tell YOU if THEY got sick, or if they were immune compromised? you’re making assumptions that your family has never transmitted it to anyone and that anyone you do come in contact with would be able to fight it off, when there’s absolutely no way for you to know. very arrogant, selfish, and dangerous, and I do hope it stems from complacency, and isn’t your normal attitude.

you seem to be viewing this whole situation as either “act as usual” or “become recluses,” totally ignoring the middle ground of “act prudently when contagious.” no, you don’t need to shut your whole family inside for the rest of their lives - but you sure as hell shouldn’t be pretending nothing’s wrong. we all have a responsibility to protect others from our nasty germs (whatever they may be), within reason, or at the very least to alert others so they can protect themselves.

I really hope you can manage to change your family’s behavior. remember that the right thing to do is not always the most pleasant or the easiest!

We were posting at the same time. This!

 

[Xantippe]

Perhaps you’ve dealt with this for so long that you’re fatigued to the situation and that fatigue presents as general unconcern. I think that translates to a laissez-faire attitude that is increasing your extended family’s urgency and concern. They don’t trust you to take the right level of precaution or exclude yourselves if someone has an active outbreak so they’ve taken the measure of excluding you. If you can educate them and agree to take EVERY precaution necessary, they might soften. The bottom line is that they aren’t going to lower their urgency until you increase yours.

Yes!

If the OP is worn out by the situation, maybe her mom (who sounds sympathetic) would be willing to come and help do regular disinfections? That would be much more helpful and constructive than grandma fighting with the extended family about excluding you guys.

 

[EasterJoy]

Wait, WHAT?! Even without an active infection in the home, the shower needs cleaned. Regularly. I hope you mean that you, personally, never clean it and it’s a chore assigned to one of the kids. Personally, I would be bleaching the whole house. Every. Single. Surface.

Honestly, it’s not the MRSA that concerns me, it’s that you seem so low urgency about it. I had a friend who’s son had two outbreaks of MRSA and she was vigilant. They cancelled a vacation because he wouldn’t be able to be in the pool or ocean and those are his favorite things to do on vacation. She also bought him a sleeve that he wore over the bandages on his arm.I never had a single worry about being around him (or the family) because I knew she was taking every precaution and I stood no risk of infection.

Perhaps you’ve dealt with this for so long that you’re fatigued to the situation and that fatigue presents as general unconcern. I think that translates to a laissez-faire attitude that is increasing your extended family’s urgency and concern. They don’t trust you to take the right level of precaution or exclude yourselves if someone has an active outbreak so they’ve taken the measure of excluding you. If you can educate them and agree to take EVERY precaution necessary, they might soften. The bottom line is that they aren’t going to lower their urgency until you increase yours.

The bigger issue is that an MRSA infection can wear down the immune system of the family. It needs to be eradicated as soon as possible, and every means possible needs to be used. If you keep everyone else safe when you go out in public, but keep exposed areas of your own home as great big MRSA reservoirs, it could spell trouble for your own tribe.

IOW, if you have all your wounds well-covered, wash your hands like crazy, and do everything right to keep from passing this infection to anyone in your extended family during group festivities, that wouldn’t leave you free to get slack on your hygiene within the family.

The CDC has a lot of information about handling MRSA

cdc.gov/search.do?queryText=mrsa
cdc.gov/mrsa/community/enviroment/index.html
cdc.gov/mrsa/community/enviroment/athletic-facilities.html

No, you do not need to bleach every single surface of the house. There has been epidemiological research done to show where cleaning efforts are effective and where they accomplish nothing. In order to put efforts in the places where they matter, it is important to know what methods are effective and what methods are ineffective or counter-productive. The goal is not to try hard. The goal is to learn what works and then to do what works. For instance, the CDC says, this: "There is a lack of evidence that large-scale use (e.g., spraying or fogging rooms or surfaces) of disinfectants will prevent MRSA infections more effectively than a more targeted approach of cleaning frequently-touched surfaces." Fogging would just waste chemicals, take up time, and cause needless chemical exposure of people and equipment to disinfectants.

If anyone in the family or from outside the family comes in to help with the cleaning, they need to know a) that they are cleared by a physician to do janitorial work in an environment that may be high in MRSA (which I would say eliminates older relatives entirely), b) how to protect themselves from infection, and c) how to carry out the cleaning in a safe and effective manner.

 

[EasterJoy]

OP, you can probably arrange to meet with someone at your state or county health department who can walk you through what efforts are necessary, which ones are a good investment of time, and which ones are a waste of time, money (on chemicals), and effort.

 

[Mayita30]

I have heard of lots of sickness due to the lack of cleanliness in bathrooms… I think that should be the cleanest place in the house… well the cleanest place should be the bathroom and the kitchen… it should be cleaned everyday or if you are working at least 4 times a week

 

[bitterhope]

Praying for you and your family. Please do whatever it takes to get rid of this. One if my sons caught MRSA playing soccer. The dr told us it is quite common to spread through locker rooms in middle and high schools. Thankfully he has recovered and it didn’t spread to the rest of the family. A neighbor at our previous post had a young child that caught and ended up losing her arm from it. This is a really big deal and your whole family deserves to get healthy.