STAPH AUREUS AND SKIN DISEASE

Report #6833 6/12/96

If you have a chronic skin condition that will not heal, ask your doctor to culture your nose for a bacteria called staph aureus. If you have that germ in your nose, you can be cured by taking the appropriate antibiotic.

Staph aureus is a bacteria that causes serious diseases, such as arthritis (1) and toxic shock syndrome and can worsen any skin condition such as psoriasis. Many people carry this germ in their noses and have no symptoms whatever. Some have only a burning in their noses. However, when they break their skin from a cut or disease, the staph aureus prevents the skin from healing. For example, people who have staph in their noses often do not heal after surgery (2). More than 50% of breast-feeding mothers with sore nipples are infected with staph aureus and can be cured by taking the appropriate antibiotics (3). Staph aureus is a common trigger that causes psoriasis to spread.

If your skin is infected with staph aureus, you can usually clear it up by taking the appropriate antibiotic such as cephalexin on Augmentin. However, the infection usually returns because oral antibiotics often fail to eradicate staph aureus from the nose. If you have a skin infection caused by staph aureus, ask your doctor for a nose culture to see if you have a staph aureus infection/ or you can just apply to your nose at bedtime, an inexpensive antibiotic ointment such as bacitracin or the far more expensive, mupiricin. (4,5,6).

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News