matisse
climber
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Ken I gotta modify the do not scrub advice. If there is embedded dirt/ gravel etc you do have to scrub until you get it out, otherwise you end up with a tattoo in the scar..
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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this sounds like a john tesh thread,
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Riley Wyna
Trad climber
A crack near you
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An interesting thing i have learned through my own experiments is how important it is to wash your abrasions, goobys, etc with soap and water as soon as possible.
You get those minor crack climbing abrasions and dont wash your hands for days and they turn into full thickness epidermis goobs
You wash them right away and you will often have no wound the next day.
Remarkable how well soap and even cold water kill off the bacterial army and prevent a big immune system battle/response that kills your skin.
CA MRSA is a wicked virulent bug - ya see any hint of an aggressive infection starting get to a doctor as soon as possible.
I have never had a bacterial infection that i know of - my immune system seems strong for that stuff.
But flu virus i am really prone to getting.
Some people get one minor exposure to MRSA and they have abscesses popping up all over their bodies for ever.Many others will colonize for it and never get an infection
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Holy Moley, Phil! Right there in Hill City!!?
I have actually heard of an uncomfortable amount of similar events.
When my mojo rises I'll send some info about a related case, though it was at first written off as a San Joaquin valley fever variant (endemic to rural Utah, btw!!)
Platinum rob got an almost lethal infection in an existing wound that encountered "the leach fields at the base of el cap"
Another friend here in Moab had a similar el cap related experience that ended up involving, out patient iv antibiotics multiple times a day and removal of necrotic tissue.
Crazy sh#t.
Heal up Phil, we still have bad craziness ahead of us to inflict on an increasingly less unsuspecting world!!
"Steph infection " - moose?
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Scuffy got an infected nodule on his knee on mother superior that festered into a watermelon sized(okay that's an exaggeration) karbuncle that exploded a few weeks later on chingando, in a maelstrom of pus 'n blood. That made his light colored thrift store pants appear to have been epicenter for an amputation. Getting a scream of horror from his hard as nails belayer! I was glad to have put the rope up and not be in need of a TR that day, I'll tell you!!
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Do you mean fresh from the font ? What about stuff picked up along the way and added to holds from shoes in a sticky mixture ?
I'm not being an ass about this. I have a WCB level 2 FA cert and I'm always trying to better understand guck and it's consequences.
I mean fresh, which is a sterile liquid.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Ken I gotta modify the do not scrub advice. If there is embedded dirt/ gravel etc you do have to scrub until you get it out, otherwise you end up with a tattoo in the scar..
You DO have to get the stuff out, but the damage caused by scrubbing makes me shy away from it, except in the most severe circumstances, and those should not be self-cleaned while drunk.
I far prefer to use pressure irrigation. In ER's in which I've worked or run, my preference was a Water-Pic. There is very little a gallon/two of that won't remove, with little damage. The poor man's version would be a hose, or water poured from a bottle from a height of a couple of feet. Very little tissue damage, and FAR less pain. Of course, I always anesthetize such wounds. I also like using a wet-to-dry dressing technic for removing debris over time, which is very effective for removing the junk.
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moosedrool
Trad climber
lost, far away from Poland
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Jaybro,
Meybe because it was Steph, the infection wasn't that bad :-))
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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I believe that hepatitis B has been found in an infectious state in egyptian mummies. It is very hard to kill. Bacteria are easily killed, in contrast. usually minutes or hours.
Thanks, Ken. So of the various things humans are likely to produce and deposit on or near rocks - urine, faeces, and blood in particular - which are a health threat, per se, and how long does it last? It sounds like bacteria in blood die fairly quickly, especially in the open air/sun. What about viruses? How long do faeces take to decompose?
(IIRC, urine in and of itself is sterile, although a fine medium in which to grow things.)
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Bruce Kay
Gym climber
BC
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None of you guys were raised on a farm huh?
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Way.....way.....way back when, the Eye at Jtree had a huge raptor nest about half way up and a liberal dressing of bird sh#t.
About a week after the armpit started to swell, couldn't put my arm down past half mast. By the time I got into the doctor the lymph node was the size of a goose egg and the diagnosis was Cat Scratch Fever.
Out came the mini harpoon lance and instant relief followed by a rather large dose of just out of the refrigerator cooooold penicillin.
The lump under the armpit was gratefully traded for a short lived lump on an ass cheek.
I still have an excessive adverse reaction to bird sh#t.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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So of the various things humans are likely to produce and deposit on or near rocks - urine, faeces, and blood in particular - which are a health threat, per se, and how long does it last? It sounds like bacteria in blood die fairly quickly, especially in the open air/sun. What about viruses? How long do faeces take to decompose?
(IIRC, urine in and of itself is sterile, although a fine medium in which to grow things.)
Blood is the PERFECT medium to grow bugs....in fact, the general type of petri dish we use in the lab is a blood medium. Works great for bacteria, and some viruses. But as it dries, bacteria die rapidly, except for some that create special capsules to protect from drying. Tetanus, for example. Some viruses are very hardy, like the hepatitis types, that withstand drying just fine.
Urine is pretty dilute, and there is generally not a LOT of stuff to grow on, so unless you have a puddle of it, it will dry out pretty fast, and things will tend to die rapidly.
Feces are not a particularly good growth medium, as most of the nutrients have already been consumed. Feces are about 90% bacteria by weight. There may be viruses. However, infectivity decreases rapidly with drying.
Blood is definitely the one I'd be most concerned about.
It's been said that the best way to dispose of feces in the backcountry, when no one will be about, is to smear it on an exposed rock, and let the sun dry it, which it will do in a day or two, killing the bugs. Takes longer in soil.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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some folks still haven't recovered from their Steph Infections
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, roadkilphil... get well soon as time allows...
very sorry to hear of this... and for anyone, as well...
seems there are enough hard things in the world--it is sad if our bodies
turn against us, in the middle of all that, :(
may the grace abound for our bodies to properly fight this off...
and good open doors of help, to be there, as well...
wash, is always a good thing--our mom's taught us that too...
water, is what she said, too, and soap...
'course, bad then, we really NEVER heard of this 'out of control'
type infection situations... :(
praying and well wishes for you phil!
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The user formerly known as stzzo
climber
Sneaking up behind you
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It's been said that the best way to dispose of feces in the backcountry, when no one will be about, is to smear it on an exposed rock, and let the sun dry it, which it will do in a day or two, killing the bugs. Takes longer in soil.
LNT no longer teaches the smear on a rock technique.
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gf
climber
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Good thread; I've had a few nasty drug resistant infections that seem to stem from getting cuts in grubby climbing areas. Now i travel with a "wash kit" plus a smoking antibiotic cream and an emerg course of the drug that works for me in cases when i'm somewhere far from good medical attention
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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I've had many bad infections from living in the tropics. In this environment, we rush to the ER for a shot as soon as swelling or redness occurs and we all have current tetanus shots. It's routine here that the ER docs draw a line above and below the wound and tell us to reappear for antibiotic IV's if the redness goes beyond the mark.
We're also told to never use iodine on a wound incurred in the ocean as coral and most marine life are resistant to iodine and it doesn't work.
The main thing that seems to prevent infection for me, is to make a wound bleed, squeezing hard above a tiny skin break if necessary, to make that happen. I continue to do this under running water for awhile before putting on cream and gauze.
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