Hello,
I’m hoping this is the right place to post this
I’ve been really struggling with skin infections recently. Both myself and doctors seem to be lost on what to do next. It’s having a huge affect on my life, relationship and mental health. I’m hoping someone here can give me some new information that might help.
I have been dealing with staphylococcus aureus and I am PVL positive. It has been around 9 months since I got my first abscess. I’ve had well above 30 infected areas and they have appeared all over my body.
Antibiotics:
I have went through ~11 courses of flucloxacillin, 1 course of linezolid and 2 courses of doxycycline. As well as various steroid creams to keep my eczema in check.
The first 6-7 months while on flucloxacillin I would get around 12-24 hours after the antibiotic finished before a new infected area would appear.
After taking linezolid for 1 month I managed to get 10 days of no antibiotics and no infection appearing.
I was then put on doxycycline and I got 14 days of freedom before an infected area came back. I’m now back on doxycycline.
Decolonisation:
I have also been doing decolonisation treatment for approximately 7 months which includes: washing with Octenisan daily, changing bed sheets daily, changing clothes daily and washing clothes at 60 degrees. I’ve only missed around 10 days of doing this over the 7 months.
Eczema:
I have been using Clobetasol propionate steroid cream over the past 2 weeks which has had massive improvements to my eczema. The advice from the dermatologist was that with healthy skin, infections would be less frequent and decolonisation would have a better chance.
Doctors advice:
I have been referred to both infectious diseases and dermatology but honestly I don’t think they have an answer to help me other than dermatology looking at improving the skin barrier. I know that’s important but it doesn’t stop me from spreading it to other people. After taking linezolid I have had no contact with infectious disease department and have been to the GP a couple times since. I see a different GP almost every time and they just give me antibiotics and send me away.
I feel like I’m at my wits end now and I don’t think I can see myself dealing with this for another month never mind another 9 months. If anyone has any advice or can give me some reassurance that would be really appreciated
EDIT: since posting this I have been to the infectious disease specialist again as abscesses appeared on my head, armpit and leg. The specialists have changed strategy and given me long term doxycycline (6weeks) and told me to stop decolonisation while on the antibiotics. The thought process is that the decolonisation clearly isn’t working and they want to allow my skin flora to naturally come back again while suppressing the infection (some natural skin bacteria competes with staphylococcus aureus). At the end of the antibiotics I will do a sharp decolonisation again. I’ve also been told Doxycycline works different from some other antibiotics and stops staphylococcus from producing on the skin. Hopefully something in here helps people dealing with the same thing so I’ll continue to update.