Staphylococcus epidermidis is one of the microbes that might be living on your skin! It can also live in your mucous membranes! This little bacterium is actually not very pathogenic. This little guy likes to infect people with weak immune systems, and people are most likely going to come in contact with this microbe in a community place or at a hospital. This microbe is something to be worried about for people with catheters because that is a very susceptible place for a biofilm to form.How do you get Staphylococcus epidermidis you may ask? As it turns out we actually carry the bacteria on our skin all the time, the problem arises when it gets into our body and starts reproducing and causing the infection. Staphylococcus aureus produces several exotoxins. Staphylococcus is commonly found on the skin and in the nasal passages. If the bacterium enters the body it can cause serious disease. One of the exotoxins produced by S.aureus can cause layers of skin to slough off; another of the exotoxins causes potentially deadly toxic shock syndrome. Food may also be contaminated with S.aureus exotoxins, which are so potent that less than a microgram causes vomiting and diarrhea (Campbell).
Three things you didn’t know about Staphylococcus epidermidis!
#1 Almost every organ can be infected by Staphylococcus.
# 2 S. epidermidis does not usually cause infections, except in people with any type of indwelling catheter or implanted device.
#3 Staph is a very hardy bacterium. It is gram-positive and arranged in grape-like clusters.
Now that we know those awesome facts about Staphylococcus epidermidis, let’s talk about the environment where these microbes actually live, the SKIN!
The skin supports its own ecosystems of microorganisms, including yeasts and bacteria, which cannot be removed by any amount of cleaning. Estimates place the number of individual bacteria on the surface of one square inch of human skin at 50 million, though this figure varies greatly over the average 20 square feet of human skin. Oily surfaces, such as the face, may contain over 500 million bacteria per square inch. Despite these vast quantities, all of the bacteria found on the skin's surface would fit into a volume the size of a pea(Odland).
The microorganisms keep one another in check and are part of a healthy skin. When the balance is disturbed, there may be an overgrowth and infection, such as when antibiotics kill microbes, resulting in an overgrowth of yeast. The skin is continuous with the inner epithelial lining of the body at the orifices, each of which supports its own complement of microbes(Odland).
The skin is composed of three primary layers: the epidermis, which provides waterproofing and serves as a barrier to infection; the dermis, which serves as a location for the appendages of skin; and the hypodermis (subcutaneous adipose layer). The skin also contains the hair follicles, cold and heat receptors, the sebaceous glands, and the dermal papillae that determine what our fingerprints look like(Odland).
