I had no idea what this was, but I know it didn’t sound good.
Buccaneers confirm Carl Nicks and Lawrence Tynes were afflcted with MRSA infections. More on NFL Insiders, 3 ET, ESPN.
— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) August 22, 2013
I went to Wikipedia and they had a photo which I will not show, trust me you don’t want to see it, but here was the description of the infection. It isn’t pretty.
S. aureus most commonly colonizes the anterior nares (the nostrils). The rest of the respiratory tract, open wounds, intravenous catheters, and the urinary tract are also potential sites for infection. Healthy individuals may carry MRSA asymptomatically for periods ranging from a few weeks to many years. Patients with compromised immune systems are at a significantly greater risk of symptomatic secondary infection.
MRSA may progress substantially within 24–48 hours of initial topical symptoms. After 72 hours, MRSA can take hold in human tissues and eventually become resistant to treatment. The initial presentation of MRSA is small red bumps that resemble pimples, spider bites, or boils; they may be accompanied by fever and, occasionally, rashes. Within a few days, the bumps become larger and more painful; they eventually open into deep, pus-filled boils.[3] About 75 percent of community-associated (CA-) MRSA infections are localized to skin and soft tissue and usually can be treated effectively.[citation needed] But some CA-MRSA strains display enhanced virulence, spreading more rapidly and causing illness much more severe than traditional healthcare-associated (HA-) MRSA infections, and they can affect vital organs and lead to widespread infection (sepsis), toxic shock syndrome, and necrotizing (“flesh-eating”) pneumonia. This is thought to be due to toxins carried by CA-MRSA strains, such as PVL and PSM, though PVL was recently found not to be a factor in a study by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the NIH. It is not known why some healthy people develop CA-MRSA skin infections that are treatable while others infected with the same strain develop severe infections or die.