Dustin Poirier earns a W over staph infection, headed home from hospital today

It got a bit scary there for a second, but it looks like Dustin Poirier is winning his fight against a bad case of staph infection.

Poirier revealed at the start of the week that he had been in the hospital for days as doctors struggled to find an antibiotic to treat a staph infection that had started in his foot. Staph is short for staphylococcus bacteria and is a common issue for fighters, but not all staph is created equally. Some responds to treatment immediately and others are more resistant to antibiotics. That upgrades it to Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Some even develop into necrotizing fasciitis aka flesh-eating bacteria.

“Staph infections, particularly MRSA, can be fatal,” Dr. Brian Sutterer said in a video on Poirier’s situation. “They can spread to the bone and cause osteomyelitis, they can lead to amputations. If that bacteria gets into your bloodstream and spreads kind of throughout your body, you can become septic, which can be fatal. So MRSA is really no joke. It’s a pretty common thing that we see.”

Basically, a bad staph infection can totally kill or maim you, and Poirier was starting to approach the ‘uh oh’ zone where the infection was continuing to spread and unresponsive to any treatments.

Fortunately, something miraculous happened on Tuesday — the antibiotics Poirier was on finally started countering the staph. “The Diamond” posted an update on Twitter regarding it:

“Antibiotics are working,” he wrote. “Getting outta the hospital tomorrow morning!”

This is definitely a great update. Things weren’t looking as good back on Monday when Poirier first revealed he’d been hospitalized.

“S—’s getting serious,” he wrote then.

Fortunately, he had good doctors to take care of him, and his wife Jolie Poirier to keep him entertained during his hospital stay. There are multiple videos of her racing him around the wards in a wheelchair or hanging in his hospital room and they’re about the sweetest thing you ever did done see.

Now that the staph is under control, Poirier will likely spend the next several weeks on strong antibiotics to completely stamp out and kill the bacteria in his foot. While it’s never fun being on those or having to stay off the infected foot, it beats a longer stay in the hospital. And now Dustin has a legitimate excuse to spend Christmas 100% at home instead of at the gym.

Poirier is coming off a big third round submission win over Michael Chandler at UFC 281 in an exciting battle that was awarded Fight of the Night. We can’t wait to see what’s next for “The Diamond” in the octagon.