Monderate staph?

[mysticrose]

So my oldest DD was admitted Tuesday after her PFT's took a serious nose dive. She went from mid 70% down to 45% in a month. This was after she had been on an oral antibiotic. After about 3 days of Tobramycin and Fortaz her PFT's went back up to mid 70's. She is home now on IV's and goes back in week after next. For the first time she managed to cough up not one but TWO green chunks for the clinic. Both were tested and apparently the only thing that has grown was staph and they said it was moderate.
So my question is what do we do now? Do we treat the staph more aggressively than they have in the past? She was also diagnosed a few months ago with Immune Complex Arthritis. Could that also be having an impact on her lungs as far as the body just not fighting the bugs off like it should?
Alot of these questions will be brought up to the CF team when we go back for her follow up, but I was wondering if anyone here had a similar experience with staph and could give me an idea of what direction they took.

Jen mom to 4 kiddos. 3 w/cf and one lucky red head.

 

[Mommafirst]

I don't really know about the ICA, but if the Staph is sending her lung functions down, then YES I would think you would need to adopt a more aggressive treatment against the staph. I know that the docs don't tend to treat staph without symptoms, and I get why, but it CAN be very damaging and if it is showing to be so, then they need to get aggressive. So sorry to hear all this. CF is so frustrating.

 

[cindylou]

My current doctors never treat staph. They don't even test for it (they consider it "normal flora") unless it's MRSA. This drives me CRAZY, as I have a lifetime history of reacting very badly to my staph infections. I do so much better when my staph is treated as aggressively as my psuedomonas! Honestly, staph is a bigger problem than pseudo for me most of the time, and I feel much better after treatment for staph.

I can understand the reasoning for why doctors don't treat it aggressively, but I think it really needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. I know for me, it makes a big difference in my health overall.

 

[2005CFmom]

My daughters first hospitalization was in January of his year due to staph (she does not culture PA). Her FEV1 had dropped from 116% down into the 90's. It had been dropping slowly and rounds of oral antibiotics were not cutting it.
The IV's didn't seem to clear everything up, so after IV's she went on an inhaled antibiotic. She has been doing inhaled vancomycin every other month. At her last appointment her FEV1 was back to 116%.
I'm hoping that this treatment won't be her normal, but that after a few more rounds she will be able to maintain her pfts without the vanco. So far though, after a month off, her symptoms seem to return.
And to be clear, this is normal staph not msra. Vanco is usually used to treat mrsa but our doctor felt that although her staph was not resistant, it was "persistent" and needed a little extra kick to deal with it.