Antibiotic-Resident Bacteria coming to my town! Antibiotic alternatives?
July 3, 2017 5:13 PM Subscribe
The future of antibiotic-resistent bacteria is not good news for us. So what other ways to specifically combat dangerous bacteria have people in distant times and/or distant lands used? Assuming I'm already eating a good diet, getting enough sleep, living in a fairly hygienic situation, praying to God, and washing my hands a lot.
I'm interested in books or magazine articles that look at the history of infection, as long as it's actually about what people did, and not just a OMG History Is Horrible list of awful things.
Antibiotics are not that old; there must still be useful information passed from person to person. (When I was 5 or 6, I remember the doctor coming to my house (!) to give me a shot of a new wonder drug, penicillin, because I had a very high fever after getting my tonsils out.
Many years ago a friend with an abscessed tooth went to a very old dentist, who said if she couldn't afford an antibiotic, to rinse with either very hot water and salt, or very hot alcohol, such as brandy or port. Any other anecdotes like that one also welcome.
I'm interested in books or magazine articles that look at the history of infection, as long as it's actually about what people did, and not just a OMG History Is Horrible list of awful things.
Antibiotics are not that old; there must still be useful information passed from person to person. (When I was 5 or 6, I remember the doctor coming to my house (!) to give me a shot of a new wonder drug, penicillin, because I had a very high fever after getting my tonsils out.
Many years ago a friend with an abscessed tooth went to a very old dentist, who said if she couldn't afford an antibiotic, to rinse with either very hot water and salt, or very hot alcohol, such as brandy or port. Any other anecdotes like that one also welcome.
there are very few people on Planet Earth who wear shoes indoors
Lots of folks do. I don't know what this has to do with MRSA, though.
posted by zadcat at 5:33 PM on July 3, 2017 [11 favorites]
Lots of folks do. I don't know what this has to do with MRSA, though.
posted by zadcat at 5:33 PM on July 3, 2017 [11 favorites]
The last thing I want to be is dismissive, so please take this in the tone that it's meant, but a lot of this sounds like your brain on anxiety. Wash your hands, do all the normal things to stay healthy, but if you're so afraid you're praying about something that's kind of already happening and how doomed we are there's maybe something more at work there. If you want to read about infection it's usually better to come at that from a standpoint of interest rather than terror.
posted by colorblock sock at 5:37 PM on July 3, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by colorblock sock at 5:37 PM on July 3, 2017 [11 favorites]
Best answer: Here's a study on garlic's antibacterial effects.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:46 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:46 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You might find phage therapy interesting.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:48 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 5:48 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
This is nothing you need to worry about if you are an otherwise healthy adult/child. People that are most at risk from antibiotic-resistant bacteria are those with other co-morbidities/compromised immune systems such as people with diabetes, or people who are in hospital and have recently undergone surgery.
posted by ryanbryan at 5:56 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ryanbryan at 5:56 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Won't thread sit, I promise, but want to emphasize that this is a thought experiment, not a current problem. "Praying to God" was a joke, obviously a lame one. I've read a number of comments from doctors who say "A future without working antibiotic medicine is going to be the future, period." So wondering what humans did before penicillin. Also, even if it wasn't called "our immune system" there must have been opinions about how to strength whatever part of us fights infection.
Thanks so far, by the way! Some great links. May we never have to reference these during our lifetimes.
posted by kestralwing at 5:58 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Thanks so far, by the way! Some great links. May we never have to reference these during our lifetimes.
posted by kestralwing at 5:58 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You could try a combination dating from the ninth century of leeks, garlic, wine and oxgall. You'll need a brass vessel.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:10 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:10 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
Best answer: In the short term (i.e., the next decade) there is nothing you can do other than washing your hands and avoiding wearing shoes in your home to prevent contracting MRSA. Garlic won't do it. Phage therapy is pretty far off. The sad fact is that deaths by antibiotic resistance (AMR) may or may not rival deaths from heart disease by 2050.
posted by My Dad at 6:10 PM on July 3, 2017
posted by My Dad at 6:10 PM on July 3, 2017
Best answer: Honey has antibacterial properties.
posted by ryanbryan at 6:21 PM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by ryanbryan at 6:21 PM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Burning the possessions of sick people;
Physically isolating sick people as much as possible;
Being even more careful of food safety and wound care;
Avoiding activities that can lead to injury or exposure.
posted by amtho at 6:25 PM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Physically isolating sick people as much as possible;
Being even more careful of food safety and wound care;
Avoiding activities that can lead to injury or exposure.
posted by amtho at 6:25 PM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Best answer: In World War I, doctors amputated aggressively and used antiseptic solutions very aggressively (see this Atlantic article). Like carbolic acid, or sodium hypochlorite (bleach). It sometimes worked. But a lot of people died.
posted by snowmentality at 6:35 PM on July 3, 2017
posted by snowmentality at 6:35 PM on July 3, 2017
Best answer: I cannot more highly recommend the Staph Retreat episode of Radio Lab. Fascinating! There is no "before" - only degrees of understanding what we were doing. A Google search for "Viking antibiotic" will yield a number of related articles.
posted by jrobin276 at 6:51 PM on July 3, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by jrobin276 at 6:51 PM on July 3, 2017 [7 favorites]
You also can't underestimate that people died inexplicably and at a young age back then, of things we would nowadays consider incredible. A massive part of the answer to your question is that they didn't do anything because they didn't have the diagnostic tools to know what was wrong with them, and they just died and people were none the wiser.
posted by ryanbryan at 7:18 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by ryanbryan at 7:18 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I had a MRSA infection. Fun times. Likely could have avoided it by promptly washing with soap and water, then bandaging the massive scrape on my knee after I tripped on my driveway, rather than wiping it off with my hand and continuing to work in my garden for the next hour.
You get infections from open wounds. Don't get open wounds. If you get one, wash it immediately with soap and cover it. That's something a lot of historical sufferers didn't bother doing.
posted by olinerd at 7:23 PM on July 3, 2017 [19 favorites]
You get infections from open wounds. Don't get open wounds. If you get one, wash it immediately with soap and cover it. That's something a lot of historical sufferers didn't bother doing.
posted by olinerd at 7:23 PM on July 3, 2017 [19 favorites]
Best answer: Here's some more information about the Ancient Biotics project, posted by Pallas Athena above: here's a video interview of some of the members, and info from Penn, where part of the project is based.
Similarly, in 2015 Chinese chemist Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize for her work in developing a new medication to treat malaria that is based on ancient Chinese herbal traditions written down in 340.
posted by lharmon at 7:32 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Similarly, in 2015 Chinese chemist Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize for her work in developing a new medication to treat malaria that is based on ancient Chinese herbal traditions written down in 340.
posted by lharmon at 7:32 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Staph is already on you now, just looking for an opportunity. When people say "I got a spider bite" that is never a real thing. It's a staph infection, almost always.
Before antibiotics people in recent memory, people still alive like my Dad, used things like Meleluca or Black Salve. Thankfully we, as modern people, don't have to resort to that.
We use modern medicine.
posted by sanka at 8:43 PM on July 3, 2017
Before antibiotics people in recent memory, people still alive like my Dad, used things like Meleluca or Black Salve. Thankfully we, as modern people, don't have to resort to that.
We use modern medicine.
posted by sanka at 8:43 PM on July 3, 2017
Best answer: I've read a number of comments from doctors who say "A future without working antibiotic medicine is going to be the future, period." So wondering what humans did before penicillin.
They died, mostly.
At least, they did if the infection was bad enough, or they were weak enough (young, elderly, or immune compromised in some way). Or lost their hearing (from ear infections), or sight (from conjunctivitis), or fertility (from gonorrhea or chlamydia), or cognitive ability (from syphilis), or lung function (from tuberculosis) or had other long-term, permanent complications.
Amputation or debridement (surgical removal of infected tissue) saved some. Disinfectants saved some others. A good number of otherwise healthy folks got supportive care (fluids, pain relief, etc) sufficient to allow their bodies to fight off an infection (this is why we sent people to the sea to recover from "consumption," or tuberculosis - to hope that resting would get them strong enough to recover). Natural remedies surely saved a few more, though honestly, the range of mechanisms of natural remedies is wide, and the likelihood of targeting the right remedy to the 1+ bacteria causing an infection was somewhat guesswork.
Hands-down the best thing that you can do to protect yourself from infection with ARBs (antibiotic resistant bacteria) is to take as few antibiotics as possible over the course of your entire life. Slightly less under your control, you can try to avoid nursing homes, and prisons, and health care systems, and dialysis, and catheterization, and immune-suppressing drugs. That reduces your risk of having ARBs around you, and therefore on you. Take probiotics, and eat fermented foods, and keep your microbiome as healthy as you can. Really, though, they're everywhere - just do everything you can to not get sick in the first place, which is all the same techniques you'd use to avoid infections from antibiotic-susceptible bacteria (wash your hands, disinfect cuts, stay home when you're ill).
posted by amelioration at 8:53 PM on July 3, 2017 [11 favorites]
They died, mostly.
At least, they did if the infection was bad enough, or they were weak enough (young, elderly, or immune compromised in some way). Or lost their hearing (from ear infections), or sight (from conjunctivitis), or fertility (from gonorrhea or chlamydia), or cognitive ability (from syphilis), or lung function (from tuberculosis) or had other long-term, permanent complications.
Amputation or debridement (surgical removal of infected tissue) saved some. Disinfectants saved some others. A good number of otherwise healthy folks got supportive care (fluids, pain relief, etc) sufficient to allow their bodies to fight off an infection (this is why we sent people to the sea to recover from "consumption," or tuberculosis - to hope that resting would get them strong enough to recover). Natural remedies surely saved a few more, though honestly, the range of mechanisms of natural remedies is wide, and the likelihood of targeting the right remedy to the 1+ bacteria causing an infection was somewhat guesswork.
Hands-down the best thing that you can do to protect yourself from infection with ARBs (antibiotic resistant bacteria) is to take as few antibiotics as possible over the course of your entire life. Slightly less under your control, you can try to avoid nursing homes, and prisons, and health care systems, and dialysis, and catheterization, and immune-suppressing drugs. That reduces your risk of having ARBs around you, and therefore on you. Take probiotics, and eat fermented foods, and keep your microbiome as healthy as you can. Really, though, they're everywhere - just do everything you can to not get sick in the first place, which is all the same techniques you'd use to avoid infections from antibiotic-susceptible bacteria (wash your hands, disinfect cuts, stay home when you're ill).
posted by amelioration at 8:53 PM on July 3, 2017 [11 favorites]
I'd recommend Michael Mosley's TV series "Pain, Pus and Poison" - and in this particular case "Pus" - for some good coverage. Miasma theory was one of the most import on the subject of infection for a long time. It was medically useless but the placebo value may have helped patients in some cases. There were also treatments such as mercury (for syphilis) which seem to have been based on the idea of giving people a poison in the hope that it would do the disease more harm than it would do them.
Beyond that - here is a quick summary of some other plants which have been used as antibiotics in herbal medicine.
posted by rongorongo at 10:48 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Beyond that - here is a quick summary of some other plants which have been used as antibiotics in herbal medicine.
posted by rongorongo at 10:48 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Came in to say 'bacteriophages' (viruses that attack bacteria)...it's what we used most like right before penicillin and other antibiotics were discovered. And, here in the age of CRISPR, is something we're likely to see a lot more of.
Also...more new antibiotics. The main reason you hear so much about resistant bacteria these days is that it's been nearly 30 years since the last major type of antibiotics was approved. 30 years for the bacteria's DNA to figure it out like a rubik's cube and develop workarounds. But there's a new technique for antibiotic discovery that's pretty clever and we'll probably see a lot more of. Basically, many antibiotics have a fungal origin (like bread mold to penicillin) so, to find more fungi, they use lasers to etch like a million tiny holes into a glass microscope slide, then (I shit you not) take it and bury it in the dirt. The holes get colonized by fungi, it's dug up, and a robot tests each one (with 1000+ 'hits' per slide). As a result, there's like 20 new antibiotics being studied/getting ready for FDA approval. Everything is going to be OK.
(TL;DR: antibiotics are not a 'cure all' but just another in a long series of weapons for the war against disease that we will be fighting forever, most likely)
posted by sexyrobot at 10:53 PM on July 3, 2017 [15 favorites]
Also...more new antibiotics. The main reason you hear so much about resistant bacteria these days is that it's been nearly 30 years since the last major type of antibiotics was approved. 30 years for the bacteria's DNA to figure it out like a rubik's cube and develop workarounds. But there's a new technique for antibiotic discovery that's pretty clever and we'll probably see a lot more of. Basically, many antibiotics have a fungal origin (like bread mold to penicillin) so, to find more fungi, they use lasers to etch like a million tiny holes into a glass microscope slide, then (I shit you not) take it and bury it in the dirt. The holes get colonized by fungi, it's dug up, and a robot tests each one (with 1000+ 'hits' per slide). As a result, there's like 20 new antibiotics being studied/getting ready for FDA approval. Everything is going to be OK.
(TL;DR: antibiotics are not a 'cure all' but just another in a long series of weapons for the war against disease that we will be fighting forever, most likely)
posted by sexyrobot at 10:53 PM on July 3, 2017 [15 favorites]
Best answer: If you liked that dental anecdote, you will probably like this true natural remedy: acetic acid (vinegar) for otitis externa (swimmer's ear).
Unfortunately there are no natural remedies for infections like MRSA (unless you count hot compresses and lancing for abscesses!), so prevention is a better bet.
I'm not sure if this is heartening or disappointing, but remember that part of the reason that we're struggling with antibiotic resistance is because a lot of great antibiotics were developed and released, they're now generic and there is no profit in inventing new antibiotics as compared to inventing the next weight loss pill or libido booster. If infections started really getting threatening to people again, there would be more pressure on drug companies to develop new drugs for the infections, and they would respond.
In addition to minimizing your personal use of antibiotics, encourage your friends not to take unnecessary antibiotics either! You could share some of these helpful tips, mostly from the Choosing Wisely campaign, on social media! Some of the most common misuses of antibiotics are for bronchitis, for acute sinusitis, for ear infections, using Cipro for UTIs, and antibiotics for abscesses that have been drained and have no surrounding cellulitis (skin infection).
posted by treehorn+bunny at 11:40 PM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Unfortunately there are no natural remedies for infections like MRSA (unless you count hot compresses and lancing for abscesses!), so prevention is a better bet.
I'm not sure if this is heartening or disappointing, but remember that part of the reason that we're struggling with antibiotic resistance is because a lot of great antibiotics were developed and released, they're now generic and there is no profit in inventing new antibiotics as compared to inventing the next weight loss pill or libido booster. If infections started really getting threatening to people again, there would be more pressure on drug companies to develop new drugs for the infections, and they would respond.
In addition to minimizing your personal use of antibiotics, encourage your friends not to take unnecessary antibiotics either! You could share some of these helpful tips, mostly from the Choosing Wisely campaign, on social media! Some of the most common misuses of antibiotics are for bronchitis, for acute sinusitis, for ear infections, using Cipro for UTIs, and antibiotics for abscesses that have been drained and have no surrounding cellulitis (skin infection).
posted by treehorn+bunny at 11:40 PM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-resistant Bacteria
posted by hungrytiger at 1:32 AM on July 4, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by hungrytiger at 1:32 AM on July 4, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: My grandfather was a doctor who ran a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. Honestly? Before penicillin most of them died or ended up permanently disabled. My father contracted TB right after WW2 and my grandfather didn't "trust" the new fangled penicillin to treat his son: my father survived but with a hole in his lung that fused to his pleura, leaving him unable to take a deep breath for the rest of his life. That was a typical outcome for a survivor.
posted by lydhre at 4:08 AM on July 4, 2017
posted by lydhre at 4:08 AM on July 4, 2017
Best answer: Humans have immune systems that are pretty good at fighting disease. I had a case of cellulitis that my body was working on, but the lymph nodes in my groin got pretty enlarged and tender and I got weirded out and went and got antibiotics, and also got tested for lymphoma. I don't have lymphoma, but am now allergic to penicillin-class antibiotics. I am allergic to other antibiotics, so it's worrisome. Use antibiotics wisely, not just as a civic duty, but because them are not without unintended consequences.
Germs have not gotten resistant to soap, detergent, bleach, alcohol, pine oil, and other disinfectants, so using them to keep germs from spreading is a good idea. Sunshine and fresh air are natural disinfectants, too. But, living antiseptically seems to be a bad idea. People who grow up exposed to dirt and animals appear to be healthier as their immune systems have gotten a workout. Common sense is required - getting tetanus is a bad idea.
Healthy people often survived TB; my Dad, who was born in 1909, showed evidence of TB infection, but never "had" TB. Unhealthy people with limited resources and lack of nutrition died of TB; it was a scourge among the poor. Good nutrition, clean water, and clean air enhance immune health a great deal.
Fleas, ticks and mosquitoes carry disease. Rats and mice carry fleas, standing water breeds mosquitoes. Too close proximity to birds and pigs exposes humans to versions of flu that can infect humans, and then the humans bring the virus to the rest of the population.
posted by theora55 at 7:34 AM on July 4, 2017
Germs have not gotten resistant to soap, detergent, bleach, alcohol, pine oil, and other disinfectants, so using them to keep germs from spreading is a good idea. Sunshine and fresh air are natural disinfectants, too. But, living antiseptically seems to be a bad idea. People who grow up exposed to dirt and animals appear to be healthier as their immune systems have gotten a workout. Common sense is required - getting tetanus is a bad idea.
Healthy people often survived TB; my Dad, who was born in 1909, showed evidence of TB infection, but never "had" TB. Unhealthy people with limited resources and lack of nutrition died of TB; it was a scourge among the poor. Good nutrition, clean water, and clean air enhance immune health a great deal.
Fleas, ticks and mosquitoes carry disease. Rats and mice carry fleas, standing water breeds mosquitoes. Too close proximity to birds and pigs exposes humans to versions of flu that can infect humans, and then the humans bring the virus to the rest of the population.
posted by theora55 at 7:34 AM on July 4, 2017
Best answer: When I was a child, I had an ancient great aunt who was a pediatric nurse, and I hated if she was there when I had some open wound (scraped knee, rusty nail through the foot, you know, stuff kids get). She always clean the wound vigorously and painfully with a brush and soapy water, then paint it with a iodine solution that burnt.
My grans best friend was no better: if you had a cold or a flu, you had to sleep with a couple of cloves of garlic in each cheek. Also a lot of herb-based alcoholic beverages, and Coca Cola, were originally developed as medicin. One herb I think has a proven benefit is St. Johns wort for light depression, another is willow-leaf (Aspirin) for pain relief and anti-inflammatory treatments. And at one time a study seemed to prove that cranberry juice was as good as antibiotics for some infections, but I'm afraid that seems to have been disproven since.
posted by mumimor at 7:42 AM on July 4, 2017
My grans best friend was no better: if you had a cold or a flu, you had to sleep with a couple of cloves of garlic in each cheek. Also a lot of herb-based alcoholic beverages, and Coca Cola, were originally developed as medicin. One herb I think has a proven benefit is St. Johns wort for light depression, another is willow-leaf (Aspirin) for pain relief and anti-inflammatory treatments. And at one time a study seemed to prove that cranberry juice was as good as antibiotics for some infections, but I'm afraid that seems to have been disproven since.
posted by mumimor at 7:42 AM on July 4, 2017
Since you specifically asked about infection and antibiotics: I have seen moldy bread mentioned as a folk or historical treatment for wounds but can't evaluate this either as history or as medicine. I believe the trick with penicillin was getting it to withstand stomach acid so it could be taken internally but the mold itself could be used for surface wounds.
posted by Botanizer at 9:17 AM on July 4, 2017
posted by Botanizer at 9:17 AM on July 4, 2017
Try to avoid exposure in the first place - stay out of gyms and hospitals. Copper and silver surfaces have been shown to not harbor bacteria, just don't take it internally and turn blue like that libertarian candidate from Montana.
posted by 445supermag at 9:48 AM on July 4, 2017
posted by 445supermag at 9:48 AM on July 4, 2017
In December 1941, FDR had a sinus infection, so they treated it by packing his nose/sinuses with a cocaine solution to reduce the swelling.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:27 AM on July 4, 2017
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:27 AM on July 4, 2017
Syphilis is one of the diseases that was effectively treated by penicillin, but before the advent of antibiotics 20th-century medical researchers were working on a treatment called pyrotherapy which involved raising the patient's body temperature high enough that the bacterial pathogen is killed.
The most successful approach involved infecting the patient with malaria intentionally, so that through the malarial fever the body did the work of raising its temperature in the least-damaging fashion. Since malaria had a higher survivability rate than almost-certainly-lethal tertiary syphilis, the numbers worked out.
The beautiful part is that when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death. (warning: TVTropes link)
posted by XMLicious at 12:57 PM on July 4, 2017
The most successful approach involved infecting the patient with malaria intentionally, so that through the malarial fever the body did the work of raising its temperature in the least-damaging fashion. Since malaria had a higher survivability rate than almost-certainly-lethal tertiary syphilis, the numbers worked out.
The beautiful part is that when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death. (warning: TVTropes link)
posted by XMLicious at 12:57 PM on July 4, 2017
Assuming I'm already eating a good diet, getting enough sleep, living in a fairly hygienic situation, praying to God, and washing my hands a lot.
Believe it or not, regardless of your precautions, you could already be a carrier for MRSA. It's pretty common for a person to carry MRSA and never exhibit symptoms of infection.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:30 PM on July 4, 2017
Believe it or not, regardless of your precautions, you could already be a carrier for MRSA. It's pretty common for a person to carry MRSA and never exhibit symptoms of infection.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:30 PM on July 4, 2017
Best answer: A good treatment for those "spider bites" that are really staphylococcus boils is applying hot compresses. Our pediatrician had us using this treatment, in addition to an oral antibiotic, for one boil my child had; the next boil he developed never got bad enough to require antibiotics, after we started hot compresses on it much earlier in the infection. It really seemed as though the hot compresses worked better than the oral antibiotics, because (as the pediatrician explained), it's hard for the antibiotic you swallow to make it into your skin, and takes some time to build up the necessary concentration.
The hot compresses raise the local temperature of the infected part of the skin (obviously); this enhances the body's defenses, and it also induces changes in the bacteria. I remember heat-shocking bacterial cultures for some reason in the laboratory in grad school, by heating them to 40°C (104°F). Some genes were turned on in response to the higher temperature that were not normally expressed.
The old-fashioned way to do hot compresses is by running water out of the faucet onto your washcloth, as hot as you can get it, wringing it out, and holding it on the infected spot, then repeating this many times as the washcloth cools. This is how we did it when I was a child. The way we did it for my own child, and then for a similar problem of my own, was much easier: I bought a small microwaveable gel hot pack at the drug store and heated it until it was almost but not quite too hot to touch, then wrapped it in a damp cloth, and held it on. This is so much less trouble! You can hold it on the infection for half an hour very easily while reading. (Set a timer!) You don't get bored and leave off too soon, as can easily happen with the washcloth under the faucet method, if you are distractible. We repeated this at least twice a day, probably for a week, until it was obviously no longer necessary.
posted by artistic verisimilitude at 7:37 PM on July 4, 2017 [2 favorites]
The hot compresses raise the local temperature of the infected part of the skin (obviously); this enhances the body's defenses, and it also induces changes in the bacteria. I remember heat-shocking bacterial cultures for some reason in the laboratory in grad school, by heating them to 40°C (104°F). Some genes were turned on in response to the higher temperature that were not normally expressed.
The old-fashioned way to do hot compresses is by running water out of the faucet onto your washcloth, as hot as you can get it, wringing it out, and holding it on the infected spot, then repeating this many times as the washcloth cools. This is how we did it when I was a child. The way we did it for my own child, and then for a similar problem of my own, was much easier: I bought a small microwaveable gel hot pack at the drug store and heated it until it was almost but not quite too hot to touch, then wrapped it in a damp cloth, and held it on. This is so much less trouble! You can hold it on the infection for half an hour very easily while reading. (Set a timer!) You don't get bored and leave off too soon, as can easily happen with the washcloth under the faucet method, if you are distractible. We repeated this at least twice a day, probably for a week, until it was obviously no longer necessary.
posted by artistic verisimilitude at 7:37 PM on July 4, 2017 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks for so many wonderful and varied answers -- why so many are marked "best answer."
Oddly, I hadn't even thought of MRSA; I was only imagining a future much more like the past in terms of infection. But hey! Now I'm feeling more aware of MRSA! :-/
posted by kestralwing at 11:52 PM on July 4, 2017
Oddly, I hadn't even thought of MRSA; I was only imagining a future much more like the past in terms of infection. But hey! Now I'm feeling more aware of MRSA! :-/
posted by kestralwing at 11:52 PM on July 4, 2017
Best answer: If we are going to talk about hot compresses - then we should also maybe mention maggot therapy. Healers of groups as diverse as Maya, Aborigines and Napoleonic soldiers - all knew that a wound that got infected by maggots would often give the casualty a better chance of recovery than one which did not. It seems to be becoming more popular in modern times too - becoming an FDA approved method of treatment from 2004, for example.
posted by rongorongo at 1:29 AM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by rongorongo at 1:29 AM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Motivated by the same thoughts as you, a few years ago I started an "experiment" of treating all skin-breaching injuries as promptly as possible. This was mostly paper cuts, and prompt treatment meant washing them immediately with soap and water, or slathering on some alcohol-based hand sanitizer if I couldn't get to a sink, and then keeping it bandaged up. I found that cuts treated this way typically healed up twice as fast as ones I just sucked on and then ignored. I didn't use antibiotic ointment unless there were signs of infection.
Keeping your skin in good shape will help. This may mean using lotion in the winter (if your skin gets dry and irritated), giving yourself a good scrub when you bathe, keeping your feet and foldy bits from being too moist for too long, etc.
Speaking of moist feet: I sometimes get athlete's foot that causes splitting of the skin in the crease under my pinkie toes (extremely horrible and painful). I find that tea tree oil is very effective to clear up the athlete's foot; then I just have to wait for the split to heal. I use this stuff swabbed directly on the skin with the little brush. Tea tree oil kills fungus, but I don't know if it has any effect on bacteria.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:47 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Keeping your skin in good shape will help. This may mean using lotion in the winter (if your skin gets dry and irritated), giving yourself a good scrub when you bathe, keeping your feet and foldy bits from being too moist for too long, etc.
Speaking of moist feet: I sometimes get athlete's foot that causes splitting of the skin in the crease under my pinkie toes (extremely horrible and painful). I find that tea tree oil is very effective to clear up the athlete's foot; then I just have to wait for the split to heal. I use this stuff swabbed directly on the skin with the little brush. Tea tree oil kills fungus, but I don't know if it has any effect on bacteria.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:47 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Frequent hand-washing, sometimes with an alcohol-based soap, seems to help prevent the spread of it.
So, practically speaking, the best thing you can do to avoid it is to not take up Greco-Roman wrestling, and be sure to wash your hands. Also refrain from wearing your shoes indoors (but there are very few people on Planet Earth who wear shoes indoors, anyway).
posted by My Dad at 5:26 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]