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Update on Bella's MRSA

BostonGirl

Well-known member
I just wanted to post a quick update on Bella in case anyone is wondering. I had Bella to the vet's three days ago and thankfully they are very very optimistic that she will be just fine. The absess where the MRSA was discovered in the first place is almost completely healed - just a tiny little scab at this point which means the antibiotics are working - thank god! I talked with the vet for about an hour as to how this could have happened, why Bella, will it ever be rid of her system, what the vet community is doing to look out for this in the future, how this may affect the rest of Bella's health, etc. Long story short their is no way of knowing how she got this - of course the vet didn't want to admit that it happened during the spay but everything she said pretty much led to that being the most likely cause. There must have been someone in the operating room who is a carrier that did not take full sterile precautions. She basically boiled it down to us having very bad luck as this hospital (Angel Memorial in Boston - HUGE widely respected hospital) have only ever seen two cases of MRSA in dogs are both were from implant surgeries. So this is still pretty darn rare but they say it is starting to become more common. Overall, they hope and think that once this absess is gone that she should be a normal healthy pup - they can't say for sure if she will develop another absess like this in the future. However, she did say that the animal MRSA is not at the "scary" point that human MRSA is at. The MRSA people are dying from in hospitals is a completely different strain than they are seeing in animals which made me feel alot better. So for now, she is okay and I am very optimistic that this was just bad luck and hopefully won't cause her any problems in the future. Thanks for all the support!:)
 
So happy to hear this news! Glad that Bella is doing better :)

Thanks for the update!!!
 
That's great news :).

Did she say whether simply handling her at home and carrying her -- hence touching the incision-- could also pass this along? I understand many of us normally would have MRS on our hands for example these days, anyway so it would seem easy to pass along. I wonder if we all need to be very cautious in handling post-surgery animals... makes me think twice now about touching incision areas!
 
I was so glad to read your post this morning. I have always thought Bella is so darling. Judy and Dixie
 
That's really good news that Bella should be fine. You got some really good info and gave me some food for thought.
 
Thanks Everyone! Yes whew is right!! Karlin - the vet didn't mention us handling her incision possibly being the cause but she did say that her licking her own incision could have been a potential cause. She said that at this point it is believed that most dogs (as people) are carriers of MRSA and she may have tranferred it from her mouth to the wound to cause this while licking at her incision? I, of course, asked why would my dog be one of millions to get MRSA then if it could be this simple? She didn't know :) but did say in the future to try to prevent licking of incisions as much as possible to prevent this. She also said that while she didn't think her breed played a huge roll she did talk about how Cavaliers can tend to have poor immune systems and that they see a lot of cases of cavaliers that attack thier own red blood cells and cause anemia, etc. and that because of her breed she is just a little more prone to illness than others? In any case, wound infections are definately something to look out for in the future and not take lightly.

Thanks for the link Nicki - last week I spent a lot of time learning from the Bella Moss site - very informative and scary! I brought some of the articles from this site to show to the vet and she said this was a rare rare case of MRSA (god I hope!).
 
I am so happy to hear this!! Fantastic news indeed!! BIG Kiss and a very gentle :hug: to you both from me!!
 
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