mySQL Too many connections (1040)

[jessemd]

Hi.  I made my first site with CMSMS and about every week or so we get:
Database Connection Failed
Error: Too many connections (1040)

After reading some forum posts, I tried setting the config file to $config['persistent_db_conn'] = true; to see if that helps. 

I also checked the open connections through mySQL using: show status like '%onn%';
Variable_name          Value
Aborted_connects 3925
Connections          165863
Max_used_connections 18
Threads_connected 4

Are these values normal or is something wrong? Any help you can offer would be great.  Thanks so much.

In another post (from 2006) I saw Ted recommended to add the following to the index.php:

if (isset($gCms->db))
{    $db =& $gCms->db;
    if ($db->IsConnected())
        $db->Close();
}

Will this help or is this outdated?

Thanks so much.
Jesse