What does mrsa look like?

Infection: Mrsa (methicillin resistant staph aureus) is a bacteria that can cause different kinds of infection. Staph aureus is a bacteria commonly found on the skin. Any type of infection on the skin or other areas of the body can be caused by staph, which may be resistant. Mrsa does not respond to expected treatment. Infections not responding to standard treatment may be proven to be MRSA by culture.

Depends on Where: The symptoms of MRSA depend on where you're infected. Most often, it causes mild infections on the skin, causing sores or boils. But it can also cause more serious skin infections or infect surgical wounds, the bloodstream, the lungs, or the urinary tract.

Skin Infection: It is very difficult to differentiate MRSA from other types of infections without cultures. Clinically many physicians will treat with two type of antibiotics to cover both MRSA and other type of skin infections.

In the micro lab....: 1. It looks like purple clustered spheres when it is stained with a technique called a gram stain. (hence: staph = clustered grapes) 2. It looks like golden round convex shiny colonies on sheep blood agar plates. (hence: aureus = gold) 3. It looks exactly like methicillin sensitive s. Aureus (mssa) except it can grow on media that contains methicillin or oxacillin.