PrepperMed 101: Recognizing Bacterial Infections

Many preppers keep antibiotics in case they’re needed when professional medical care isn’t available. However, stocks will be limited; and there are good reasons not to overuse antibiotics in any case. How do you know when it’s a bacterial infection for which antibiotics are appropriate? 

This is part II of a series I started some months ago. The first part can be found by clicking here. Part II covers some additional kinds of problems not addressed earlier. These are, as the Pirates of the Caribbean might say, guidelines rather than actual rules. They won’t always get you the right answer, but they’re a lot better than nothing. I offer them as a distillation from a wide variety of medical literature sources. I’m not a physician and don’t give medical advice.

Much like pirates, bacteria aren’t good at following rules…but guidelines reflect their most common behavior.

Bacterial infections are more likely to cause pus than other infections

There are kinds of white blood cells that specialize in engulfing and eating invaders. Bacteria are the perfect size snack for these immune cells, and easy to recognize too. The average immune cell doing this job can eat about forty bacteria before it dies of indigestion. As the white blood cells eat, they release signals that call in their buddies to share in the feast.

This shows how white blood cells eat bacteria. Eventually the white blood cells dies, adding to the pus. *

All of that results in a nasty mess of white blood cells that died of indigestion plus assorted debris. It’s concentrated where the bacteria are most abundant. This gunk is pus. A spot of inflammation on the surface of the skin with a little island of pus at its tip is a pimple.

When the immune system is having trouble clearing a clump of bacteria, the clump and pus might be just walled off. The little walled off pocket is an abscess.

That means if there are abscesses, pimples, or other obvious sources of pus, it’s likely a bacterial infection. 

Most infections of wounds and skin are bacterial infections

There are a few fungal skin infections like athletes foot, but they’re in the minority. The fungal infections usually favor protected, moist spots. They don’t tend to get pussy, as noted above. One can also develop rashes, such as psoriasis, that aren’t infection at all but look as if they might be.

That said, skin infections are generally bacterial. If it’s a wound that’s getting more red and swollen, it’s probably a bacterial infection even if you don’t see pus. We’ve all too many infections these these days that aren’t susceptible to prepper antibiotics (especially methicillins), but we can at least try.

Bacterial infections tend toward colored phlegm  

Most respiratory tract infections increase the production of mucus or phlegm. It may come up and out with a ‘productive’ cough. When this gunk is clear or white, it’s more likely to be from a viral infection. When it’s more green or yellow, bacterial infection is the more likely culprit. If it’s red or rusty, it’s probably bleeding along the airways from the irritation.

Bacterial infections often piggyback on viral infections of the respiratory tract

These so-called ‘opportunistic infections’ occur when bacteria invade a respiratory tract whose defenses have been stripped by viral attacks. The best clue is that the sickness starts out with a relatively mild fever and starts to get better after a few days. Then the fever spikes up and the person feels sicker. Which brings us to…

Bacterial infections are more likely to run the high fevers than most viral infections

There are exceptions, but this is still a useful guideline. The immune system treats bacteria (free living little cells) and viruses (which always infect your own cells) very differently. Part of the difference is that the immune signals that reset your thermostat to cause fever are more abundant when fighting bacteria. Apparently it’s a defense built on the fact that your white blood cells reproduce better at the higher temperatures than the bacteria do. The result is that if the fever is high (much over 100 F) it’s more likely bacterial. That’s why colds usually don’t spike high fevers.

If it’s not likely a bacterial infection, don’t use antibiotics

Bacteria have some metabolic differences from other cell types, and antibiotics exploit those differences. Viruses infect your own cells and are completely unmoved by antibiotics. Fungi and protists, the other common infective agents, have metabolisms more like our own cells and are usually not susceptible to antibiotics either. We have different drugs to attack fungi, but that’s a subject for another post.

Once you’ve decided it’s probably a bacterial problem, you’ve got some other questions to answer. Is it serious enough to use antibiotics? Which antibiotic? How much and for how long? We’ll address some of these issues in later posts. The first mission, though, is always to make a best estimate of what’s causing the problem.

*Thanks for the image to Kate Taylor [CC0]