Increased bladder and leg pain after Cefepime and Vancomycin

Hi,

I came across this site while googling my symptoms and thought maybe someone might have some advice for what to do in this situation.

I've had Lyme for about seven years now and I'm on my second year of IV antibiotics. Currently I just started on Cefepime and Vancomycin both are every twelve hours. I've been on both before and can remember having serious bladder pain from both antibiotics even going to the ER for severe unrelenting pain. My bladder is so much better when I'm off the Iv meds but everything else is worse. The Vanco is for a sinus infection I've had that pretty much came from the Lyme and a sinus procedure in which I acquired a bad infection.

My doctor says the bladder pain is because of yeast from the antibiotics and I do think he has a point there but I feel something else is going on as well. I started my first dose of meds two days ago. Immediately after the Vancomycin I started having intense leg pain and cramping. I also have pain in my hips and back which is highly unusual for me. I also started having massive bladder spasms and cramping.

I'm on Day two of both meds and the pain is getting worse I'm also running to the bathroom constantly. I have interstitial Cystitis which has been stable until now. The antibiotics are making it so much worse.

I was just wondering if this was die off and will it eventually go away? Or if this was just because the antibiotics are so strong that they are irritating everything. I'm going to skip my Vanco for a few days because this is just unbearable.

The last time I was on Vanco I called in my doctors office and told the nurse I couldn't handle it and she said that it was fine to stop it. My previous visit my doctor put me on it again and wanted me to give it another shot. It is helping my sinus infection. My doctor is wonderful but extremely tough so I know he is going to insist I stay on it.

If anyone has experienced this please let me know.

Thanks,
Diane

Hi Diane,
Welcome to our community! I'm so glad you found us.

If you haven't ​yet​, it would be helpful for you to start with reading through the thread at the top of the forum titled,"New to Lyme?...Start here!!", as it is packed full of important information, symptom lists, helpful links and pdf's, how to detox when one has these infections, information on probiotics and much more. And this is another good list of possible detoxing routines: www.tiredoflyme.com/detox-methods.html Detoxing for us is an incredibly important part of our healing.

As I read your post, the first thing that came to my mind was that you were herxing from a Bartonella infection. Have you been evaluated for Bart? Leg pain and bladder issues are the worst for me when I'm ion treatment for Bart. Although I use herbs, so I'm not familiar with the antibiotics (abx) that you have/are using. Sorry!

Do you have other symptoms of yeast/fungal issues? It could be a combination of both yeast/fungal issues and Bartonella, but yeast/fungal issues won't cause leg pain as far as I understand.

If it is a herx, detoxing heavily and continually will be a huge help! It's the only thing that got me through my treatments because I had very high bacterial loads because I was infected for a very long time.

I had severe bladder and leg pain when I tried IV Vanco., too... The pain hit about half way through the first infusion. I was in so much pain (writhing, moaning, couldn't do anything else), my Mom called my doctor, and he said to stop the infusion immediately and take Benadryl. The Benadryl stopped the pain. He told me I may have been having an allergic reaction, but I think it may very well have been Bart.