What Does Staph Infection Look Like And How Do You Get Rid Of It?
Scrapes, cuts and pricks – add in some pimple break-outs and a few rashes – a person's skin can really take a beating from these. As if a pimple is not enough to ruin a night-out with the hottest guy you've been eyeing for months, you discover that you have a boil right smack on your neck. You're praying hard that your date has totally no idea about what does staph infection look like, but passing on the bacteria to him can definitely zero your chances of going on a second date.
Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria normally hang out on a person's skin surface: the face, arms, legs and genital. Staph infection only occurs when these once harmless bacteria begin to invade an open wound. When they do, the skin usually gets irritated: it swells up and develops red, painful bumps with white-heads. Sometimes these symptoms of staph skin infection can cause someone to feel really sick. Other times, they infect the skin so bad that they cause more than a staph infection rash, and can poison the body with toxins.
So what's a girl with staph infection to do? Going into solitary confinement or banishing yourself like a leper won't do. There are actually a lot of ways for you to be staph-free forever, or at least for most of your lifetime. Some of them you've probably learned in kindergarten while some, well, you just have to keep reminding yourself about them.
1. When you develop the symptoms of staph skin infection, it is very important to immediately cure them. Your doctor will do a bacteria culture and advise you on what medications to take. Usually, topical treatments or a few doses of antibiotics work well to eliminate the staph infection rash or bumps, as well as ease the inflammation.
2. When you develop genital staph infection, boils or folliculitis, draining the pus is important. Pus is a yellowish liquid made up of bacteria and white-blood cells. Usually constant and faithful application of a hot compress can get these boils to drain pus out on their own.
3. If not, get a doctor to surgically drain out the pus for you. Using a syringe or a needle, the doctor will nick the center or the “head” of the infection and drain out all the icky contents. Never try draining them by yourself, or else you may cause the infection to spread even more.
4. What does staph infection look like while healing? Most skin infections develop honey-colored crusts as they heal. And it is important at this point to keep your healing boils cleaned with antibacterial soap and covered with a gauze that's also changed often.
5. If your infection was caused by more than the regular Staph bacteria strain, like the Methichillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureas or MRSA, using just any antibiotic will not do since these bacteria has already developed immunity for it. Your infection can just get worse – deadly, even. Vancomycin is an active antibiotic that battles MRSA infections. Although the more chronic MRSA infections will require antibiotics to be injected through the veins.
What does staph infection look like without these treatments? Definitely worse. Without treatment, the bumps and inflammation can cause deep and nasty looking abscesses or ugly marks. Not only that, when no treatment is applied, the infection can get into your system and can eventually kill you. So as soon as a symptom shows up, immediate treatment is important.