How MRSA almost killed me, but ended up saving me.

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I had a lot of stress in my life. My wife was in bed for several months recovering from a broken bone and I was struggling to do pretty much evrything, I'd just lost my position in an extremely stressful office job and found myself, an overweight desk jockey, in agony doing an extremely physically demanding labor job, I wasnt sleeping good, I was living off of microwaved cheese quesadillas, I had no friends, no support, and on one morning in early January of 2013, it all caught up with me in the form of a microscopic organism known as MRSA.

A quick summary of MRSA: its a antibiotic resistant form of staph that, if it gets inside you, will eat you alive. MRSA is now responsible for more deaths in the US then AIDS. And I had it. I had developed a series of large, festering wounds that popped, seemingly, out of nowhere. They were so bad, I had to have emergency surgery to save me, was put on antibiotics that gave me bad fevers and made me red all over, and was on a morphine IV for the pain. I was in the hospital for a week, and would spend the next 3 months at home recovering in bed.

The doctors told me I was now a MRSA carrier. I would have it the rest of my life, would have frequent break outs every 6 weeks or so which would require powerful antibiotics, and in time it would probably cripple and kill me.

I was scared. I didnt want to spend my life like that. While I recovered in bed, I put my obsessive interest power to good use and did a ton of research on MRSA and potential ways to possibly rid oneself of it. After weeks of research, I finally settled on a compound called Allicin. If you live in the UK, you may have already heard of Allicin, and how its being used when conventional antibiotics fail. It\'s a derivative from garlic, and while it might count as medicine in the UK and Europe, it\'s still not regarded as medicine here in the US. Its extremely expensive to produce, and since my insurance refused to cover it, I was spending 560.00 every 3 months for the liquid, which I took orally everyday. I continued to have breakouts, but they went away without antibiotics and their intensity diminished over time until they were gone completely. Throughout that time, I noticed if I ate anything sugary, or if I ate a lot of processed food, that they would get worse, so I began researching nutrition and how to eat healthier; a way that didn\'t encourage bad bacterial growth in my body AND was good for me too.

Finally, in February, 2014, I underwent a series of tests and was delcared MRSA free; the doctors were amazed. It had left me scarred and weak though. It had caused a lot of internal damage and I was in constant pain, sometimes taking loritabs 3 at a time just to get through work. By accident I discovered that abstaining from meat alleviated the worst of my symptoms, such as burning, bloody stool, and I have been a vegetarian for a year now. Id already been gluten free for a couple of years so removing a major food from my diet was nothing new to me, but as I did it, I noticed that I felt incredibly good during periods where I didn't happen to eat a lot of processed food. Yes I had occasionally backslid into nachos for breakfast and cheese quesadillas, but I didn\'t want to stress my body, impair my immune system, and possibly catch MRSA again, so I kept tweeking my diet. As I did, I started to get that really good overall feeling of well being again. The weight I'd been hefting around for decades started to drop off, seemingly on it own; no effort. I felt clearer, more alert, less stressed. I could suddenly stand in a crowded grocery store and have people teeming all around me like termites and all that chaos didn\'t stick to me like it did before. I didn't have to hide in a pair of headphones playing music on my iPod to escape the reality. I could be a part of that reality, and it stayed on the outside of me where it belonged. It\'s like i had been coated with something that made me impermeable to everything instead of soaking it all up and feeling bombarded all the time.

Ive lost 60 pounds so far. I just had my 40th birthday a few days ago, but feel clearer, more resilient, and have more energy then I did in my twenties. I\'m still doing my labor job, but it\'s not agony anymore, now it\'s like getting paid to work out, and I like it ok. Sometimes I'll ook at my MRSA scars on my shrinking body and think about the life I was living before I had them. I was fat, stressed, and eating myself into an early grave. Now, after the scars, my life is far from perfect, but now, perhaps for the first time in my life, I feel like I have the power to do something with it. Ironically, I have MRSA to thank for it.

Sorry for the typos

Yeah, that's how I understand MRSA to be, you have it (and outbreaks) for about 1-2 years then your body ends up kicking it's a$s and getting rid of it.
For the most part you're then as well off as anyone.
Yes, you do still have to wash your hands because there's still tons of different "brands" of bacteria out there.

If one was a "forever carrier" there'd be more questions asked about it in all kinds of medical places so you wouldn't "infect everyone else."
There isn't, so that's a pretty strong indicator that people don't just keep it forever, passing it around like anthrax or something.

One doctor said, (rather dismissively IMO) "Everything's MRSA now."

MRSA is killed very easily by alcohol such as those hand sanitizers. It's killed by many other things too.

This would have been merely ickky, annoying, and painful experience if it hadn't been for all the other awfulness happening to you at the same time.
At least you got another job and didn't lose that one and/or become homeless.
My commiserations on your hardships.

I'd put money on your weight loss and positive well-being as due to the exercise of "an extremely physically demanding labor job," rather than a majikally meatless diet.

Once a minimum plateu of 'daily' exercise is reached, appetite for calories drops to about what you burn, under that minimum and appetite increases dramatically. And so, usually, does body weight. =(

While in hospital I was kept in isolation. A maintenance man had work on the air vent on the ceiling in my room, and even he had to wear protective gear. I'm sure this was to prevent the spread to other patients who might have suppressed immune systems more than for his personal safety.

As for being meatless, Id still be eating it if my body could tolerate it. Prior to my eating changes, I was gaining weight in spite of working a labor job (the power of cheese quesadillas 5x a day for weeks on end), but i attribute my weight loss to having that physical job in addition to being gluten free, avoiding processed foods, and eating lots of fresh produce, all of which could be done beside a nice grilled ribeye. I miss spicy chicken wings too, sometimes..

Well, I suppose I actually should have said, Grats you on weathering an awful life storm and coming out of it improving yourself in such and excellent and happy way. Very impressive!
(no sarcasm, I do mean it)

I suppose if you seriously didn't want to hear from annoying people that type first and ask questions later (or never) you would have chosen some place other than an Autism website. LOL
Sorry about that. =)

Efficient communication is not our strong point. I'm completely
Comfortable with that when with similar people.

Thanks for posting - I found your story remarkable, in a good way. Did not know that one could overcome that awful MRSA, but you did it. Congratulations on changing your Life and giving out a reminder to only eat the healthy, real foods. Also, hope your wife is recovered from the broken bone.

What type of side effects did you have from the Ancillan? Just curious to hear more about your experience.

I'm currently doing a course of antibiotics (Doxycycline) after getting bitten by a tick in a Lyme endemic area while hiking last weekend and developing some symptoms of Lyme Disease. I've only been on it since Friday, but the side effects are not fun. I plan on doing the full 21-day course as prescribed by my doctor, but would not look forward to being on it longer-term if this course isn't successful at wiping it out, due to the side effects.

I'm guessing this drug is not easily available in the US, so it's probably moot, but, again, just curious about your experience.

Actually there are distributors in the US. It's derived from garlic, so it's considered a food product by FDA (even though it's certified medicinal properties are well established in Europe) and hence not illegal for sale here.

There were only to side effects I noticed.
1 I smell like garlic.
2. After weeks of daily dosage I noticed it was giving me a tummy ache. I resolved this by chasing it with some skim milk with a shot of heavy cream in it, and then no more tummy ache! Whole milk does not work as the fat in it has been homogenized.


To cure my MRSA, I took 1/2 a teaspoon twice daily. It took a little over 9 months to cure myself. In the beginning, my doctor have me a bottle of doxycycline just in case, and there were several times I had flare ups that made me strongly consider taking it, but the Allicin beat them back down, and now over a year later, I still have that bottle in the fridge; I never did have to take it.

Before bed, I still take 6 drops of Allicin as a preventive. I feel great! I hope someday the FDA will decide it's medicine and then my insurance might cover the majority of the expense.