I do my best to maintain my health as I have been with out insurance for going on a year. I am a 30 year oldmother of four and this is my first time going without insurance in my life. I find myself out of necessity being more diligent in my preventative maintanence as I dont have the money to take care of a problem that could have easily been prevented.
We practice brushing and flossing regularly, washing hands religiously, washing clothes on hot, to kill and bacteria or germs we may have "picked up" durring the day. I like to use bleach cleaners, but also have a concern about becoming too obsessive, as you can create a problem just trying to prevent one. We all have to build a certain amount of resistance to bacteria and germs, as much as I like the Idea of a "sterile" environment I worry it will lower our resistance and make us more susecptible to germs.
My children have had trouble with MRSA methacylin resistant staph aurus, which I feel is on the rise and a health topic that the public should be made more aware of.
What it means for my children is the overuse of antibiotics in our healthcare, ie perscribing antibiotics to frequently, or when not needed. Also the overuse of them in our food, ie milk, unneccesary overuse in animals used for our food meat supply. Has made the staph my children carry(we all carry staph) a super staph. If this staph enters under the skin, it can cause a nasty skin infection that can be difficult to treat. The overuse of antibiotics has caused this nasty little staph has become a smart or "superbug" that continues to learn how to resist antibiotics. This is extremely concerning, and a issue the public should be highly concerned with. The overuse of antibiotics causes germs to "learn" how to resist them.The germs "learn" at a faster rate than our development of antibiotics. I
f your child is "colonized" with this MRSA and for instance scratches a bugbite and introduces it to an open lesion it could develop from a simple bug bite to a persitant infection that can abcess, needing to be treated by draining, packing, and you guessed it More antibiotics, wich they can become resistant to making it virtually impossible, and extremely difficult to get rid of.
When my children had this I kept them out of school, the principle said kids came to school with it all the time, I was shocked! If a child with MRSA has an abcess(looks like a pimple) that comes to a head or ruptures at school the drainage is EXTREMELY infectious and lives outside the body for quite some time. Imagine this scenario Child has what he thinks is a bug bite but it really is a MRSA abcess, he fiddles with it and it begins to drain, he has this on his hands everything he touches the drinking fountain, desks, books etc all have a nasty little germ waiting to be picked up and thrive on the next childs skin waiting to be introduced under this childs skin via scrathing and start this nasty cituation all over again. The thing is most parents arent aware of it, or do not realize how serious it can be, my daughter required minor surgery and nearly 6 weeks of packing and draining her abcess site, all at the one time I had no insurance.
So I would say the most important key to health in our household is awareness, cleanliness, and being up to date on health issues so that you can become aware of the overuse of antibiotics and make changes to protect your family, we also advocate for the FDA to start limiting the amount of nontheraputic antibiotics that are allowed into our food system.
MICHELE FROM MCMINNVILLE