ID of pathogen of minor skin infection.

[Leesteve]

So... I realize this will be topic with a lot of caveats, but let me ask you guys about this.

People with eczema or contact dermatitis scratch a lot and are prone to secondary skin infections. Then making an appointment to a dermatologist takes a few weeks and the doc attempts to diagnose visually which has a high misdiagnosis rate as skin infections all look similar and repeat doc visits, if the doc decides to do a skin culture that takes another few weeks. In the meantime the itch and infection continues.

At the onset of an minor skin infection could a person swab and culture or gram stain the slide to identify whether it’s a bacterial or fungal overgrowth with a microscope and apply otc antibiotic or anti fungal in the meantime waiting for a doc appt and cancel the doc appt if the infection goes away? If many colonies don’t grow in the culture they could even skip applying anything.

Each doc visit is like $70 plus a few hundred for labs. It seems if this technique saves a few doc visits and catches an infection early with weaker otc medications it would pay for itself quickly.

Identifying the specific bacteria wouldn’t be necessary, just Gram positive or negative or fungal.

I do know viral infections would not be identified, but they are less common and there are no otc antivirals for skin infections anyways.

Is this really hard to do? Watching YouTube videos, it doesn’t seem that hard...

You thoughts?

Thanks.

[75RR]

Forum rules clearly state that no medical advice should be asked for nor given

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[admin]

Hello!
First of all, we, the microscopy community, would like to welcome new members to the forum!

Please be advised, however, that this is an amateur microscopy forum and that medical advice (or medical issues) generally are not to be discussed here. One reason is, that there are many people out there who end up on this forum because they want to do self-diagnosis using a microscope. Some people might even not go to a doctor, thinking they can diagnose and self-medicate. On the Internet, there is incredibly much microscopy-related quackery around as well. We want to use microscopes for exploring nature.

Not to be impolite, I will still address your questions, but request that no medical topics be discussed in the forum in the future.

1. Culturing microorganisms form one's skin in dangerous. You are enriching potentially pathogenic bacteria to high concentrations. Strictly speaking not allowed to be done at home, as this belongs to an elevated Biosafety Level.
2. You will find bacteria and fungi, no matter what, because they are part of your body's natural flora. Gram staining is irrelevant. You will find Gram +, - and fungi in any case. This says nothing about their pathogenicity.
3. If you have an infection, then this is an acute issue and you should be able to get an immediate appointment anyway.

Happy microbehunting (in lakes, ponds, rivers, moss.....)!
Oliver.