Fungal Infections in Nursing Homes
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In response to: New York Identifies Hospitals and Nursing Homes With Deadly Fungus
Fungi are opportunistic organisms somewhere between a plant and an animal. Unlike plants which uses the sun in a process of photosynthesis to make their food, and unlike animals, which take in food through their mouths and use digestive enzymes in their stomachs to process the energy from it, fungi acquire food (energy) by secreting digestive enzymes into their environment and then “spreading” towards the dissolved material.
But it is best to think of fungi as little seedlings or weeds popping up in the cracks of your sidewalk or or between your flowers… anywhere you are not taking care of your soil, either mechanically or with chemicals, weeds will grow.
Think of your skin as the dirt that those weeds—or in this case, fungus--grows on. Anywhere you have skin or live cells, you can grow those weeds (fungus.) Everyone has fungus on their skin, in their mouths, in their digestive tracts, on their food, etc. What keeps a person from dissolving into a puddle of goo on the ground with phosphorescent fungi lighting them up like a Christmas tree? Balance.
Opportunistic organisms have a symbiotic balance with their environment. If one thing goes outta wack, out of balance, the fungus is now able to proliferate. Unfortunately, antibiotics kill ALL bacteria in your system but do nothing for fungi, for that you need an antifungal, or “de-weeder”! LOL Without that symbiotic BALANCE of the bacteria vs fungi, the fungi are now able to proliferate and take over.
You know what else disturbs that balance? A weakened immune system! Anytime we are under stress, cortisol rises in our system, changes the PH of our body, kills the good bacteria, and then, like flood gates overwhelmed, fungus takes over.
A weakened immune system can be just a bad immune response because there is no more energy to spare for it, or just because some people’s immune systems are just not very robust. We all know of people who always seem “sick?” Yeah, it’s cuz their immune response is never strong enough to fight off what’s going around.
Or they just had a baby (VERY stressful, eh, spinny? LOL) or they just had surgery and are trying to heal from all that cutting and slicing, or they were in some sort of accident (car?) or they are old… (There are a LOT of old people in nursing homes, LOL) And all those old people have old, tired immune systems. People can do a lot to keep their immune systems strong. However, once the spiral starts, it’s very difficult to pull out of it, especially if they tend to be just laying around, not keeping the circulation going and not getting some sunshine and fresh air.
Fungi infections run rampant through hospitals and nursing homes cuz they are filled with sick people, creating more infection to coat the walls and floors and surfaces everywhere. AND the immune responses of the people there tend to be compromised and not very robust to begin with. An overabundance of infective material just waiting for the human body shaped like petri dish to pass by and scoop them up for replication.
Another HUGE factor that can make a fungal infection spread throughout a person’s body, is the use of steroids. Steroids relieve inflammation by suppressing the immune response. Inflammation may be a body’s response to damage (a simple muscle tear, or arthritis) or an immune response used to kill bacteria or fungal infections by making an “area” inhospitable to that organism, or inflammation may just be a person’s body outta wack and attacking itself in an auto-immune type of situation. Steroids will pull that body out of that downward spiral. HOWEVER, if used too long, or used too strong, that body is now susceptible to infection from both bacteria AND fungi (but mostly fungi, for some reason) just because you’ve taken away the body’s ability to even recognize there’s a problem.
It’s all about the balance. I would not say “natural” (we are humans, and in essence natural, so to say that something we make is not natural is odd) is the only way, but that the “balanced” way is the only way. A balance between the supportive care (which includes ALL of beast’s natural “cures,” by the way) and appropriate medication. Too many people take too many medications that conflict with each other and then wonder why they are always tired and sickly feeling. Those medication conflicts always takes energy away from normal day to day activities. Inappropriate medications take away from the balance. Medications that are more toxic than needed, do more damage than good, take away from the balance. Always try for the least amount, but be aware, the more you prolong a “cure,” the stronger the infection may get until the human body can no longer sustain itself and will dissolve into that puddle of phosphorescent goo I spoke about earlier! LOL
Balance, balance, balance is the key.