What to Do When You’ve Caught Drug-Resistant Pneumococcal Disease

Updated on May 4, 2019

As a nurse working for a nursing home, you know it is important to keep everyone safe from infection at your workplace. But unfortunately, your ever-watchful eye will need to be more vigilant than ever. A scientific literature review from Elsevier Health Sciences suggests that there is a significant number of drug-resistant bacteria among nursing home residents. Some of those bacteria can cause serious infections, such as pneumonia and meningitis.

Chances are, you may have even already caught a severe form of drug-resistant meningitis: pneumococcal disease. If you suspect that this is the case, read on to learn how you can best deal with this infectious menace.

Get an official diagnosis.

First, get yourself checked out by a doctor. While as a nurse, you already possess a great amount of medical knowledge, it’s better that you get a second opinion. After all pneumococcal disease can cause different sorts of infections, so you could very well be confusing drug-resistant meningitis for some other health concern.

Depending on the type of infection the doctor officially diagnoses you with, you may receive different treatment recommendations.

Invasive Pneumococcal Disease

If the doctor does, in fact, suspect you have an invasive pneumococcal disease like meningitis, then they may request samples of your cerebrospinal fluid or blood. These samples will then be sent to a laboratory for testing. Once the results from the test are in, the doctor will know for sure if you have a pneumococcal disease and what specific bacteria is causing your infection. All of which will give them a better idea of what antibiotic will treat you best. 

Non-Invasive Pneumococcal Disease

But if the doctor suspects that you have non-invasive pneumococcal pneumonia, they may just ask that you provide them with a urine sample. From there, they can confirm if you have the disease.

They may also just determine that you have the disease based on your ear and sinus infections alongside your medical history and physical exam results.

Seek a specific antibiotic treatment.

Whether you have an invasive form of pneumococcal disease or not, then you’re going to want to look for a specific antibiotic treatment. This disease has been part of around 1,200,000 drug-resistant infections yearly, so the typical penicillin treatments aren’t going to help.

Instead, you’ll want to consider medication like AVELOX® (Moxifloxacin). Part of the fluoroquinolone class, this medication is used to effectively eradicate the drug-resistant pneumococcal disease. You can even get it at an affordable rate by shipping it through a licensed international or Canada drug center like Canada Med Center. Such a center will allow you to save on prescription costs up to 90%. 

Don’t forget to stay at home and rest.

Lastly, remember to give your body a break while you treat your drug-resistant infection. You may be a nurse who wants to help everyone in need at your nursing home. But in this instance, your body is in need of help, so give it the assistance it needs. Sleep often, drink lots of liquids and let your body relax as it fights off your infection for you.

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