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Posted 5/21/2016 11:09 PM (GMT 0)
The last couple months my treatment has been going really well. I would say I am about 90% better. Symptoms only show up when I over do it which I try not to do. Then early this week I got really sick, severe stomach pain and spasms, bloating, nausea, and fever. I went to the ER Thursday and was diagnosed with diverticulitis. They sent me home with two more antibiotics, pain medicine and nausea medicine. I was not able to get in touch with my llmd so I listened to the ER doctor and added his prescriptions to my lyme treatment. Things are not going well! The pain has improved a little but the nausea is so severe that the medicine does not work. I am extremely fatigued. I also think I am having an allergic reaction to the pain medicine. I have head and ear pressure when I take it, along with chills, hoarseness in my voice and and overall sick feeling. The ER doctor doesnt really know what to with me and my llmd is not available until Monday. Should I keep taking all my medicine? Should I quit my lyme treatment for a short time? Should I quit both until I can talk to my llmd on Monday? I am so confused.

Lyme treatment
- cefuroxime
- azithromycin
- plaquenil
- nystatin
- plus probiotics, nutritional supplements, detox supplements, progesterone

ER treatment
- ciprofloxacin
- metronidazole (flagyl)
- hydrocodone
- zofran

All thought are welcome!
Posted 5/21/2016 11:25 PM (GMT 0)
Amy,

I am so sorry you are going through this. I deal a lot with diverticulitis and it is so painful. I have gotten to the point where I refuse the cipro and flagyl. They make me so sick. When I did take them I always had to take it with some crackers. I now request Moxifloxacin and for 14 days and it worked better the last two times.

Also are you on a liquid diet and I wonder if you could add another pro-biotic? That is so important. Hydrocodone has never done a lot for me and I am not familiar with zofran. Could the ER order a different pain medication?

One thing that can help is a heating pad. You also must rest.

I don't know if you deal with this frequently but in the last year I had 6 attacks. Once I found out I had Lyme and cleaned up my diet it helped. I no longer eat much beef and very little sugar.

I hope this helps,

Denise K
Posted 5/21/2016 11:29 PM (GMT 0)
Sorry, you asked if you should continue till Monday. If you can I would. All those things you are going through could be a die off or Herx from the Lyme. I think that those antibiotics kill spirochetes. Maybe someone else would know about that.

I always feel just as you described whenever I had Diverticulitis and took antibiotics. I now wonder if it was a Herx from having Lyme that I did not know I had.
Posted 5/21/2016 11:36 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks Denise!
This is my first time with diverticulitis.....it is awful! They figure I got it from eating too many nuts. I also am on a very restricted diet so I eat a lot of nuts when I am on the road and unable to cook at home. They never mentioned a liquid diet...I can certainly try that. I called the ER doctor about an hour ago. They want me wait a couple hours to see if I feel better when the hydrocodone wears off. If not, I have to go back in. They seem willing to try different antibiotics and pain killers.
Posted 5/21/2016 11:40 PM (GMT 0)
I thought about that too but the symptoms seem to get worse right after I take the hydrocodone not the abx. I just hate this...I was doing so good. How long do you go on a liquid dietwhen you get this?
Posted 5/21/2016 11:49 PM (GMT 0)
Diverticulitis is little pockets on the intestines that food sits in and it putrefies and causes an infection. They used to believe that seeds and nuts caused it. Now they say that you need more water and fiber.

After an attack you should have been put on a liquid diet like Denise said. Your bowel needs to rest up from the trauma it has been through. Bone broth is good. I like the turkey one. Go for organic.

Boy do I know how painful this can be. I do not want to go through it again so I take fiber to keep things moving along in there.

Personally I did not do the pain meds - hydo - because it slows down my bowel and I would then get constipated. I did the warm heating pad.

Zofran is anti-nauseous pill and I have never taken it. They gave that to my daughter after her chemo ivs. So I don't know about taking that.

As for the antibiotics - I hope you told them how much you were already taking for lyme disease. If it were me, I would call the pharmacy and ask if the antibiotics you are taking for lyme will also help with the diverticulitis.

Diverticulitis needs a broad spectrum antibiotic.

Hope you feel better soon. So very sorry.
Posted 5/22/2016 12:10 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks PeteZa!

Silly question...can bone broth be bought in a store?

At first my pain was do unbearable I needed something for pain. Today it switched to severe nausea. I have never experienced anything like it. I am going to try getting through this without the hydrocodone and see what happens with the nausea.

I gave the doctor and the pharmacy my prescription list and asked them both if it was ok to take more abx. The doctor said to ask the pharmacy. The pharmacy said the abx I am currently taking wont work for diverticulitis so I needed to add more.

I haven't had a herx for several weeks. It concerns me to think I might be herxing again.

Thanks for your concern!
Posted 5/22/2016 12:36 AM (GMT 0)
Amy, I have purchased the bone broth in a grocery store. It is very good for you especially right now.

You generally want to be on a clear liquid diet till the pain subsides, then go to a soft diet and then a regular diet. I think there is a Diverticulitis diet on the Mayo website. It usually takes me a couple of weeks to get to a full diet.

I didn't catch that it is the pain med that is making you sick. I would just stop taking it. I have used ibuprofen though it isn't a good idea to use all the time. But when I was desperate I would take 3 of them. It did help.

I cannot do the nuts or seeds even though they say it has nothing to do with it. Nor can I do raw vegetables. If you are a drinker, alcohol can exacerbate it from what I have discovered though since cleaning up my diet I no longer have my glass of wine anyway. I do drink a lot of water which is helpful.

It may not be a herx. It was just a speculation.

It is kind of like Lyme. There are no clear cut answers. It is very frustrating.

DK
Posted 5/22/2016 2:04 AM (GMT 0)
I am so sorry Amy - this all sounds miserable.

Great suggestions already. Just a few thoughts:

Totally agree w/ Denise & PeteZa about liquid diet--help your digestion as much as you can and eat small portions at a time but frequently throughout the day. End the day on the probiotics so they have the nighttime to do their thing.

They sell awesome pureed veggie soups now that are great (broccoli, butternut squash, leek, potato). And I would ALWAYS take your abx w/ food if you can. One abx is hard on the gut. Everything you are taking needs a cushion. Have you ever had aloe vera juice? It's a little tart but very soothing - see if the store has it when you go for the bone broth. Try to find organic, non-gmo, inner fillet aloe vera juice. You can also get it on amazon.com

Your reaction to hydrocodone could be allergic. I'm like PeteZa, I'm in the ER before I take anything that slows down digestion (I have a lot of GI problems).

Also, the new abx could also be causing herxing unrelated to lyme & co. We have a ton of bacteria in our guts and abx function differently (which is why you're on so many) so it wouldn't be crazy to think that you're also killing more than just the bacteria causing diverticulitis. Is there any way you can detox more?

Regarding Zofran - I thought it was useless when I took it. I think what's happening is that your stomach is overwhelmed by the abx. Also, the die off can make you nauseous, too. The only thing I've found to help my nausea is MINT - mint tea, mint gum, mint aromatherapy... and some people have luck with ginger. I am so sorry about the nausea - that is very difficult to manage.

And last - what kind of Nystatin are you on? You might really need to step it up if it is pills or liquid - it's likely it can't overcome the volume of abx you're on now.

Denise & PeteZa -
Would it be safe for Amy to drink a binder - bentonite clay? It would sure help to move things along and keep yeast/fungus from going crazy with all the abx but also might help with the herxing?

-p
Posted 5/22/2016 2:06 AM (GMT 0)
OH! I also forgot that the flagyl also kills protozoa, which can also give some crazy die off. Might be another source of your nausea, cramping, spasms.

-p
Posted 5/22/2016 3:16 AM (GMT 0)
Pirouette I cannot believe that the ER or someone there, did not tell her no food for a week! I am utterly amazed that they let her leave and said nothing about giving her intestines healing time.

She should be on a liquid diet for at least a week.

Gosh, what is happening with our medical care???

Personally if I had a diverticulitis attack right now I would stop everything, but my lyme is really under control. I would heal my intestines with a liquid diet and gently add in food as if I were a newborn baby being introduced to food - rice bran, applesauce, etc. It would take me at least a month to get back to real food and my lyme protocol.

Then water galore forever and fiber would be added DAILY to keep stuff moving.

It is a extremely painful thing to ever go through and I feel for Amy and the lack of professional care she should have gotten along with quality information.

Amy, hugs of comfort and I hope it is a little better tonight.

If all else fails, just drinking warm (not hot) water feels better.
Posted 5/22/2016 4:01 AM (GMT 0)
A co-worker of mine gets diverticulitis about 2x a year and he's always prescribed Cipro only as its one of the few antibiotics that works for it. Your challenge is Cipro is also going to add to killing of the bugs which would exacerbate your already bad symptoms. No matter what you do you'll need a few days to recover from the attack.

If it were me I'd drop the metronidazole and hydrocodone as the Cipro alone will take care of the infection. The Zofran may/probably is helping with nausea. If this doesn't do the trick you could cut back on Cipro to half dose for a day or two and see how you feel.

You're going to have to plow through this but you will feel better in a few days.
Posted 5/22/2016 5:13 PM (GMT 0)
I have never used a binder while having diverticulitis. That is not to say it wouldn't help. It maybe would remove some of the bacteria causing the inflamation. I was always scared to add anything. However the last attack I had in March I did things a little different and did heal a lot faster. I amped up the probiotics instead of stopping them and refused the cipro and flagyl...I just can't tolerate them. They have damaged nerves in my arms and make me horribly sick. So I went to the antibiotic mentioned above. It helped tremendously.

I have been to so many Drs. for this for the last 30 years and each is pretty vague, don't seem to understand how truly painful it is and each has a different theory. My theory is that it is in the bacteria. I believe that people who get diverticulitis carry a bacteria that eat off of the food particles that get caught in the diverticuli. When the immune system is compromised it wreaks havoc. Similar to Lyme. Or maybe combining with the Lyme bacteria? Who knows. All I know is it hurts like crazy!
Posted 5/22/2016 7:23 PM (GMT 0)
Amy -
If you feel like testing out a binder, and no one would blame you if it made you too nervous, this is what I suggest:

1. Wait until at least 1 hr after your final meds/food for the day.
2. I would start with 1 tablespoon of bentonite clay in at least 8 oz lot of water.
3. Wait another 2 hrs and then replenish good bacteria with the probiotic as the last thing you ingest before bedtime.

If you herx too greatly (the binder will also be detoxing other things) or it's uncomfortable but not too horrible, try repeating but with less clay. If it felt OK, repeat the 1 Tablespoon for a week and then try increasing to 2 or 3 Tablespoons. Repeat for as long as you're on the abx--or throughout treatment (this has been my night-time routine since I started my tx).

Denikeef -

I think you are absolutely correct. I've read that as close as 90% of "gut diseases" (IBS, chron's, SIBO, gastroenteritis, etc...) literally MOST of the diseases MDs will prescribe all the meds in the world for but can't tell you what causes the "disease" is rooted in gut biome imbalance, usually bacterial imbalance. It affects the control of yeast and fungal populations, affects bad bacteria dominating good, affects absorption of food/med/supplements, and certainly weakens the immune system. And people wonder why lymees have gut problems...

I have been doing research on fecal micro biome transplants. For me (lots of GI issues and in long-term tx for lyme 7 co) I think it's the OLY way I will have permanent success with any of the efforts I've made to heal my gut.

-p
Posted 5/23/2016 1:15 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks for the all the suggestions. I really really appreciate it. I will definitely try as many as I can. I made it through the night and all day without hydro or nausea medicine...that helped greatly. I am trying to eat a clear liquid diet but that is a little tougher. I am on a very restricted diet (no gluten, dairy, sugar, coffee, alcohol, eggs, corn, anything processed) and recently my blood sugar started dropping. I feel like I have sensitivities to everything. My gut has been a mess for many many years. I am trying so hard to get it better. I feel so much better when my gut is good...then this happens :( I had terrible trouble with cipro three years ago when I had a really weird bacteria infection in my gut. I was never in so much pain...mostly joints but some pain everywhere. I wonder now if I was herxing. I didn't know about herxing then so I wasn't detoxing. So far I am not having to much trouble with the cipro as far as I can tell. It will be interesting to see what my llmd says tomorrow.

Thanks again! I know everyone here is dealing with their own situations but they still take time to help others!
Posted 5/23/2016 3:15 AM (GMT 0)
I hope it is a good visit with the LLMD and please take it easy.
Posted 5/24/2016 5:59 AM (GMT 0)
I would say fiber and clorella over a clay or charcoal as can stop ya up...also you may be floxed...that is an awrsome abx load and would love to see your blood cells on 4 abx and plaq...just thoughts ..maybe its yeast or giardia as piro said ..also plaq can reduce your immune sx ( why rhuemys luv it )...i would fiber water candida diet alot ..also have considered parasites 50%of americans have ascaris and they call it ibs or polps or diverticulits ..did they do a lower gi?..have yoh done stool sample ?..pyruvate palmoate, ivermectin ,salt c,clove wormwood...i would pause on lyme and do parasite cleanse .
Posted 5/25/2016 4:28 AM (GMT 0)
Well I made it through the weekend and my pain and nausea are getting better. My llmd called Monday night and told me to stop my three lyme antibiotics. She was surprised the pharmacy allowed me to take all 5 antibiotics. Apparently two of them should not be used together...I think it was cipro and azithromycin. I see her again on June 2nd...I am curious to see what happens at that visit.

One more question though...has anyone experienced withdrawal symptoms from antibiotics? Since I quit the three antibiotics I have been getting a weird sensation over most of my body. My skin feels like it has constant goosebumps. I cant tell if this is from the new antibiotics or withdrawals from the lyme antibiotics.

Thanks again for everything! I read a post on facebook the other day that reminded me of this forum "Only the strongest people help others when they have problems of their own."
Posted 5/25/2016 5:03 AM (GMT 0)
Taking Cipro and azithromicin together can increase the risk of developing an irregular heart rhythm.

Good thing your LLMD caught that!!
Posted 5/25/2016 3:19 PM (GMT 0)
I don't think it is a antibiotic withdrawal, but more likely a lyme symptoms rearing its ugly head.

If you do decide on a binder, you HAVE TO drink lots of water. And I mean LOTS! Binders can back you up and that is the last thing you would want. I never take a binder with a diverticulitis bout. I just go for the liquid diet and let nature calm it down.
Posted 5/25/2016 5:07 PM (GMT 0)
Increase your Bifidobacterium supplementation. Florajen3 is a good one to take. Good luck.
Posted 5/25/2016 5:14 PM (GMT 0)
I agree with what's been said. I live with what was called "severe" diverticulosis for my age (I was in my late 30's at the time) and have one only one bout of diverticulosis (which is when an infection is present).

My most major issues are intestinal, so I am very "in tune" with them and what's going on. You will need to learn to be very proactive. I can't eat many raw foods at all as the cooked versions are easier to digest. Any time things feel like I'm really having issues (like pain!!) with my intestines, I put myself in bed for a minimum of 3 days and a liquid or very soft food diet, depending on the severity of the attack. Then I reintroduce solid food very slowly. It's a struggle, but it's better than going through what you just went through!

I also agree with PeteZa on it not being some type of withdrawal, but a return of your symptoms. I also whole heartedly agree with PeteZa on making sure you drink LOTS of fluid when taking binders! I deal with a lot of constipation anyway, and when I need to use binders, it's a real struggle to find the right balance.
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