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[Frasedog]

Originally Posted by Noob

Lol, fair enough.


My recommendtions;

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• Long-sleeved rash guards. Staph is scary and you don't want it.

• Rash guard under the gi. Prevents friction burns and scratches from gi chokes. Open skin leads to infections. See above note.

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• Motherfucking ibuprofen. Sore? Tired? Hurt? Hangnail? It's better than Robitussin. And it's cheap and comes in small bottles that fit in a gym bag. I buy the huge bottles and keep a smaller one filled for my gym bag. It really does work wonders for small-to-moderate pain and inflammation.

• Band-aids and tape. If you have open skin, put a band-aid on it, then cover it with tape. Band-aids will come off in practice, tape helps it stay on.

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• Disinfectant spray, from Walgreens or something similar. The stuff football players use for large area field burns. Mat burn is very similar, and it's hard to clean large-area burns. Very easy for shit to get in there, and it's not fun. I keep this at home.

• Mouth guard and cup. If you need this explained, you should not be playing contact sports.

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• Go to your doctor or dentist, and get a real mouthpiece. Not the boil-and-bite stuff. It's expensive, I know. But even one trip to the dentist for mouth-related injury will be more expensive than a mouthguard. And possible way more expensive.

• I recommend a steel cup. I know guys that don't like it, but I have been to enough tournaments (for Taekwondo) and seen guy's cups shatter when kicked. The idea of shrapnel in my testicles is all the motivation I need to deal with the slight discomfort of wearing a steel cup. And they last forever.

I just had a bout with staph. A pretty tame type I guess. It's called Impetigo. Took antibiotic pills an a topical gel. Gone in a week. But, you bring up some good points. I never wear a rashguard under my gi. I get mat burn on my elbows all the time. Bandaids always coming off. In light of my first staph infection I need to start wearing a rashguard again and invest in some of that skin protectant spray, and spray bactine all over my scrapes etc. Any other recommendations? Hammer the vitamin C maybe, to keep the immune system strong?

[Noob]

Originally Posted by Frasedog

I just had a bout with staph. A pretty tame type I guess. It's called Impetigo. Took antibiotic pills an a topical gel. Gone in a week. But, you bring up some good points. I never wear a rashguard under my gi. I get mat burn on my elbows all the time. Bandaids always coming off. In light of my first staph infection I need to start wearing a rashguard again and invest in some of that skin protectant spray, and spray bactine all over my scrapes etc. Any other recommendations? Hammer the vitamin C maybe, to keep the immune system strong?

You're lucky you had a minor version. The one I had wasn't so minor, and it sucked.


Band-aids with athletic tape help. Band-aids come off really easily, and taping them will help keep them on during practice. Rash guards under your gi are also a good idea.


Even mat burns and scratches can be bad. Any open skin just increases your chances of getting something. No matter how small.


A general multivitamin is a good idea, can't hurt. Also, antibacterial soap immediately after your workout is the best thing you can do. Hand sanitizers and other antibacterial stuff is okay, but it can also make your situation a lost worse.


I really don't recommend using a lot of antibacterial stuff. Like anything else, some bacteria will develop resistance and this is exactly what you want to avoid. If you have resistant strains of bacteria on your skin and they develop staph, it will be much much worse. That is exactly how people get the scarier forms of staph infection.


Stuff you pick up in the hospitals tends to be much worse. Specifically because it has survived all cleaning measures that a hospital would normally use.

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• Don't use a bunch of antibacterial stuff. Wipes, hand sanitizer, etc. It's all right on occassion, but overdoing it hurts your chances in the long run.

• Shower with hot water and soap as soon as you get home. I know this sounds stupid, but it is by far the best method. There is no bacterial resistance to soap and water. Never has been, never will be.

• Keep any open skin covered. Cuts, scrapes, mat burns, etc. Anything.

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That's about it. There realy isn't any magic solution, sadly. Just common sense stuff, and be strict about it. I wish there was more to it, but that's about all I can think of.


There are some surgical soaps you can use if you're really paranoid. I keep some around for particularly bad or dirty cuts. It's more or less the same stuff surgeons use when they scrub in before doing surgery. It's pretty tough stuff. Same conditions exist with this, in that bacteria can develop resistance.

[unquiet]

Suprised nobody put kneepads. I guess I have weak knees.

I was always rolling injury free until my last tournament. I guess the training was hard and the event itself took a huge toll on my knees. When I came back to practice the next day, I couldn't sit in someone's guard because of the pressure on my knees placed on the mat. It hurt too much to kneel. Now I wear some good knee pads with the bubble over the knee cap and I can roll fine. I have to adjust it occasionally, but at least my knees don't hurt.

Take care of your knees! Now just my right knee hurts to put on the ground. It's ok for about 15 seconds before the pain begins.

Although I used to run a lot just around a year ago, it might have been from that.

[ufobydeath]

Originally Posted by unquiet

Suprised nobody put kneepads. I guess I have weak knees.

I was always rolling injury free until my last tournament. I guess the training was hard and the event itself took a huge toll on my knees. When I came back to practice the next day, I couldn't sit in someone's guard because of the pressure on my knees placed on the mat. It hurt too much to kneel. Now I wear some good knee pads with the bubble over the knee cap and I can roll fine. I have to adjust it occasionally, but at least my knees don't hurt.

Take care of your knees! Now just my right knee hurts to put on the ground. It's ok for about 15 seconds before the pain begins.

Although I used to run a lot just around a year ago, it might have been from that.

Kneepads are something I've been meaning to get for a while... I used to have weak knees but I've started stretching them more so now there's little to no pain when I roll/run. Still, it'd be good to have em. I'll consider it a mid-priority purchase right now

[kaiz77]

Noob Im interested about all that staph talk going around lately....kind of worries me with my NAGA tourny comin up.....and thats the last thing I want to be thinking about..

What where your signs of infection?...treatments?.....

[Noob]

Originally Posted by kaiz77

Noob Im interested about all that staph talk going around lately....kind of worries me with my NAGA tourny comin up.....and thats the last thing I want to be thinking about..

What where your signs of infection?...treatments?.....

Signs of infection:

• Raised or painful areas of swelling.

• Painful or hypersensitive areas of your skin, usually accompanied by swelling that will increase over the course of days.

• Can be very, very painful.

• Very sensitive or irritated areas surround a cut, scrape, pimple, or other broken skin.

• All of these symptoms persist over the course of days. Swelling (if you have it) will get worse each day. The surrounding areas will be painful to touch.

• Once it's advanced, you will have a discharge from the wounds. It's fucking disgusting, and it needs to be drained. I had to drain mine by myself a few times, and it was not fun.

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Not everyone will have visible swelling. It depends on where the infection is. I had mine on my hand and cheek, so the swelling was very obvious. You can just as easily have it on the back of your thigh, or the side of your rib cage. Places where swelling will be less noticeable.




Treatments:

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• Go to the doctor.

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That's really it. Once you get it, there are no home remedy treatments. You have to go to a doctor. At that point, they have one of two options:


Give you a general antibiotic and hope that it works (usually for less severe strains).

Take a sample of one of your infected locations and run tests on it to identify the infection. This will determine exactly what you've got, and will determine which medications you will need to take.





If you've got this, I recommend going to the doctor as soon as you can get in. You probably don't need to go to the emergency room, but I wouldn't waste days on end before you make an appointment.


If you get a bad strain of it, you will have to take some serious antibiotics, probably pain medication, and you will have to have the areas drained of the pus. Depending on where the infection is, this can be simple, or difficult. It can also be really fucking painful. Having my infected areas drained was one of the more painful moments in my life.


Also, you can have the bacteria and not be 'infected.' When staph is present in your body, you are either 'infected' or 'colonized.' You can be colonized for years, maybe even decades, and never have a clue.


Once you are infected though, it basically guarantees that you are also colonized. The spores of the bacteria live in your nasal cavity. So once you are done with all your antibiotics, pain meds, etc, your doctor will give you some ointment to put inside your nose before you go to sleep. You have to do that for about a week.


Hopefully that clears it up, but there are no guarantees. That's why if you've ever had it, you need to be extra careful about things since it is conceivably easier for you to get it again.



On the plus side though, it's not usually as serious as what you hear about. People dying from it are incredibly rare. As a general rule:




Staph you get from the hospital = Bad.


Staph you get from the gym = Not as bad.





Either strain can do bad things, but as a general rule the stuff you get in the hospital is scarier. If you get yours from a gym, you will be okay. The horror stories you hear are usually from people who are infected in the hospital, or are just stupid and don't go to the doctor when they know there is a problem.


If you go to the doctor at a reasonable time, you will be okay.

[kaiz77]

I see....sounds nasty as I expected....thanks for the info..

[Noob]

Originally Posted by kaiz77

I see....sounds nasty as I expected....thanks for the info..

Yeah, it's no picnic. It's not life-and-death either, but I would definitely recommend you not get it.



If someone offers you cake or staph, you choose cake.

[Noob]

Originally Posted by The Sundance Kid

Luke Cummo says if you drink Pee, you will be immune to Staph.

Miss Cleo says she can tell you all your secrets. For $4.99 a minute.

[unquiet]

Originally Posted by ufobydeath

Kneepads are something I've been meaning to get for a while... I used to have weak knees but I've started stretching them more so now there's little to no pain when I roll/run. Still, it'd be good to have em. I'll consider it a mid-priority purchase right now

Any special stretches or just your basic P.E. hamstring and quad stretches? Yoga, perhaps?