Cannabis and the "Superbug" MRSA

[Holey Mike MFD]

Dr. Steve Love you Love the Show and I'm not just saying that because the Mancow screener told me to. First off thanks for setting this up to post. I was diagnosed with MRSA back in march. First I was misdiagnosed as is common and I was treated with cephlaxin. After that they took a culture and prescribed Bactrim DS. I got another sore and I was prescribed Cleocin along with an instruction to remove all piercings because he felt that was a avenue for infection to enter my body. This doctor was kind of old fashioned and I suspect he might have been a little judgemental however giving him the benefit of the doubt I removed one piercing I'd had a hard time healing. The cleocin worked I'd been sore free for about 4 months until now. I'll have to continue this post with what the next Doctor prescribes.
Now for my big question after I get my new treatment I"ll have used 3 of aprox 16 possible treatments if I'm not mistaken. What is my long term prognosis or estimated outlook, if you will once those treatments are exhausted ? Here is a link that describes using cannabis as a alternative treatment would you concur with this study?

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/5266.html

I've considered moving to a medical marijuana state if neccesary however right now my paying gig Trucking requires drug testin and straight edge for reflexes , safety etc so I don't want to make such a move lightly because I'd be starting from scratch career wise. I have a good friend in Denver whose girlfriend is prescribed medical marijuana for legit reasons arthritis pain. I know you've spoken in favor of medical marijuana before but this is the first I've heard for MRSA treatment.
Well thanks for taking the time to read this and keep up the good work on the show. Also let us pests know if there is somone we can email a bajillion times to hear you more regularly.
Thanks CYA

[Dr Steve]

Dr. Steve Love you Love the Show and I'm not just saying that because the Mancow screener told me to. First off thanks for setting this up to post. I was diagnosed with MRSA back in march. First I was misdiagnosed as is common and I was treated with cephlaxin. After that they took a culture and prescribed Bactrim DS. I got another sore and I was prescribed Cleocin along with an instruction to remove all piercings because he felt that was a avenue for infection to enter my body. This doctor was kind of old fashioned and I suspect he might have been a little judgemental however giving him the benefit of the doubt I removed one piercing I'd had a hard time healing. The cleocin worked I'd been sore free for about 4 months until now. I'll have to continue this post with what the next Doctor prescribes.
Now for my big question after I get my new treatment I"ll have used 3 of aprox 16 possible treatments if I'm not mistaken. What is my long term prognosis or estimated outlook, if you will once those treatments are exhausted ? Here is a link that describes using cannabis as a alternative treatment would you concur with this study?

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/5266.html

I've considered moving to a medical marijuana state if neccesary however right now my paying gig Trucking requires drug testin and straight edge for reflexes , safety etc so I don't want to make such a move lightly because I'd be starting from scratch career wise. I have a good friend in Denver whose girlfriend is prescribed medical marijuana for legit reasons arthritis pain. I know you've spoken in favor of medical marijuana before but this is the first I've heard for MRSA treatment.
Well thanks for taking the time to read this and keep up the good work on the show. Also let us pests know if there is somone we can email a bajillion times to hear you more regularly.
Thanks CYA

Thanks man, and great question. Sorry to hear about the MRSA, but it is totally treatable in healthy adults, so you should be able to effect a total "cure" the problem is that it's everywhere, so you can pick it up again if you're susceptible to it.

MRSA is simply "methicillin resistant staph aureus", a mutated bacteria that is resistant to a ton of antibiotics. It developed from exposure to antibiotics...a few of the darned things develop resistance and then they teach each other how to do it. Next thing you know, the whole species is resistant. They're not all knowing, though...sometimes old antibiotics we don't use much any more will still work. That's one reason why the Bactrim and Cleocin antibiotics still work.

any avenue from the inside of the body to the outside is considered a danger when you have MRSA, so I don't disagree with the piercing advice in your particular case. The guy may have been a little judgemental, but the theory is correct...if you have a route that allows the bacteria to easily go from skin to subcutaneous structures, they will.

regarding the cannabis thing, it's true that cannabinoids (the active ingredients in pot)
have antibacterial properties. What is also totally true is that there's no evidence that ingesting cannabinoids (smoking them, eating them, shoving them up your rectum) have any (and I mean ANY) effect on bacteria that are invading someone's body. Here's the actual study:

1: J Nat Prod. 2008 Aug;71(8):1427-30. Epub 2008 Aug 6.

This is the citation...the journal and page number so you can look it up in a medical library if you like. You have to decide whether the Journal of Natural Products is scholarly enough for you to accept their findings.

Antibacterial cannabinoids from Cannabis sativa: a structure-activity study.

Title of the article...this tells us that it's a theoretical study, looking at the structure of cannabis, and trying to dope out if further hard research should be done

Appendino G, Gibbons S, Giana A, Pagani A, Grassi G, Stavri M, Smith E, Rahman
MM.

Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Alimentari, Farmaceutiche e Farmacologiche,
Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy. appendino@pharm.unipmn.it

The authors and where they come from. This is an italian article

Marijuana (Cannabis sativa) has long been known to contain antibacterial
cannabinoids, whose potential to address antibiotic resistance has not yet been
investigated.

This is the setup. The potential to address antibiotic resistance has not yet been investigated., so we'll see if they laid this to rest.


All five major cannabinoids (cannabidiol (1b), cannabichromene (2),
cannabigerol (3b), Delta (9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (4b), and cannabinol (5))
showed potent activity against a variety of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus (MRSA) strains of current clinical relevance. Activity was remarkably
tolerant to the nature of the prenyl moiety, to its relative position compared to
the n-pentyl moiety (abnormal cannabinoids), and to carboxylation of the
resorcinyl moiety (pre-cannabinoids). Conversely, methylation and acetylation of
the phenolic hydroxyls, esterification of the carboxylic group of
pre-cannabinoids, and introduction of a second prenyl moiety were all detrimental
for antibacterial activity.

blah blah blah scientific jargon



Taken together, these observations suggest that the
prenyl moiety of cannabinoids serves mainly as a modulator of lipid affinity for
the olivetol core, a per se poorly active antibacterial pharmacophore, while
their high potency definitely suggests a specific, but yet elusive, mechanism of
activity.

Ok, uh...what? What they're saying is that they THINK one part of the cannabis molecule is responsible for it's antibacterial activity, but the final mechanism is "elusive". What this also means to you is that there is not yet even a reason to begin to make cannabis-derived antibiotics (which will be pills, creams, and IV antibiotics) until a crapload more studies are done. In the meantime, it's a cool avenue to try to get funding for, as killing MRSA (and the even worse VRE) is a high priority right now and anything that looks new and different will likely get at least some funding.


hope this helps!



steve

[Holey Mike MFD]

Ok I guess that ruins my plans to quit driving trucks and get my medical marijuana scrip. Basically these guys are trying to get funding for their studies is what you're telling me and they haven't proven anything yet. In your reply you refer to effecting a total cure I've had this since March and the longest I've been without a sore has been approx 3 months or so. Once I think I'm out of the woods a new one pops up always appearing as a stubborn pimple only it gets much worse and painful and leaves a disgusting crater.
How do I know I'm rid of this? This is a question posed to me by a friend that lets me stay at her place when I'm off the road and I didn't have a good answer. She has a child so she has good reason to be concerned. I basically told her I'm only contagious when I have a active sore because that is what I was told (also to keep a active sore properly bandaged to prevent spreading) . However I started forming a new sore the next day which I kept to myself in embarrassment.
So now the latest approach is to return back to the bactrim DS. Only this time they doubled the dosage from 2 800mg capsules to 4 a day. This surprised me because I thought once a anti-biotic was used it was scratched off the usable list due to the bacteria developing immunities but she told me since I used cleocin last it was OK to go back to bactrim.
Well that's all for now Thanks Dr. Steve for making this thread available even if I'd gotten thru to your show I'm still a stumbling mumbling ass on the radio and I'd have slowed your show down and then I'd have to hear myself on the replay and cringe all over again. :wallbash:

[Dr Steve]

Ok I guess that ruins my plans to quit driving trucks and get my medical marijuana scrip. Basically these guys are trying to get funding for their studies is what you're telling me and they haven't proven anything yet. In your reply you refer to effecting a total cure I've had this since March and the longest I've been without a sore has been approx 3 months or so. Once I think I'm out of the woods a new one pops up always appearing as a stubborn pimple only it gets much worse and painful and leaves a disgusting crater.
How do I know I'm rid of this? This is a question posed to me by a friend that lets me stay at her place when I'm off the road and I didn't have a good answer. She has a child so she has good reason to be concerned. I basically told her I'm only contagious when I have a active sore because that is what I was told (also to keep a active sore properly bandaged to prevent spreading) . However I started forming a new sore the next day which I kept to myself in embarrassment.
So now the latest approach is to return back to the bactrim DS. Only this time they doubled the dosage from 2 800mg capsules to 4 a day. This surprised me because I thought once a anti-biotic was used it was scratched off the usable list due to the bacteria developing immunities but she told me since I used cleocin last it was OK to go back to bactrim.
Well that's all for now Thanks Dr. Steve for making this thread available even if I'd gotten thru to your show I'm still a stumbling mumbling ass on the radio and I'd have slowed your show down and then I'd have to hear myself on the replay and cringe all over again. :wallbash:

ha, I'm sure you'd be fine...I'd be the one cringing afterward, because I had to look up the CDC recommendations on MRSA tonight just to be able to start to answer your questions!

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/pdf/ar/CAMRSA_ExpMtgStrategies.pdf

Basically, the Bactrim continues to work because the bug isn't perfect...there are still antibiotics that it has problems figuring out how to defeat.

The CDC says that there is no EVIDENCE that chlorhexidine washing helps, but that it makes sense to try it in people who have had recurrent or persistent skin infections. Talk to your pharmacist and see if you can get a chlorhexidine-containing soap over the counter and use it in the shower according to directions. Also, talk to your infectious disease specialist first and see if he/she agrees. If you don't have one, you might get your health care provider to ask for a consultation if nothing else works.

that CDC document is pretty plodding, but it has everything in it that you need. print it out and take it with you to your next doctor appointment.


keep me in the loop,



steve

[Holey Mike MFD]

ha, I'm sure you'd be fine...I'd be the one cringing afterward, because I had to look up the CDC recommendations on MRSA tonight just to be able to start to answer your questions!

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/pdf/ar/CAMRSA_ExpMtgStrategies.pdf

Basically, the Bactrim continues to work because the bug isn't perfect...there are still antibiotics that it has problems figuring out how to defeat.

The CDC says that there is no EVIDENCE that chlorhexidine washing helps, but that it makes sense to try it in people who have had recurrent or persistent skin infections. Talk to your pharmacist and see if you can get a chlorhexidine-containing soap over the counter and use it in the shower according to directions. Also, talk to your infectious disease specialist first and see if he/she agrees. If you don't have one, you might get your health care provider to ask for a consultation if nothing else works.

that CDC document is pretty plodding, but it has everything in it that you need. print it out and take it with you to your next doctor appointment.


keep me in the loop,



steve


Well that's encouraging to know the bug isn't perfect:thumbup:. I guess I thought it was like the borg on Star Trek where you use one phaser settin once and then they adapt to it and you can't use it no more. I will definitely look into the chlorhexidine soap. Do I need a scrip for that ?

Part of my problem is I don't have health insurance I've been forkin over a $100 to a $150 a visit. I've looked into health insurance with my company but a pre existing condition won't be covered till I've been insured for a year. I'm gonna sign up anyway the joke is on them because I just bought a motorcycle(ok maybe I shouldn't joke like that). It's been recomended before that I see a infectious disease specialist but I'm afraid of covering the cost. Also since I drive over the road I don't have a primary Physician I've actually dealt with a half dozen different Doctors I'm not sure if that's a bad or good thing everyone has seemed qualified and knowledgable. Basically there is a doctor on staff at the random drug testing facilities I go to (concentra) and they usually have some kind of truck parking.

Well gotta roll thanks for the link and info CYA