Rifampin bowel burning?

What did you do to resolve bowel burning while on rifampin? Probiotics like saccharomyces boulardii seem to help, although not 100%. I've tried levofloxacin/doxy/azithromycin before with no GI problem whatsoever, but rifampin seems to kill a lot more bacteria than other abx? Has anyone experienced this side effect? What is the reason for this intestinal burning, it feels like rifampin is damaging my intestines. I guess it causes bowel inflammation, which is partially resolved by probiotics.

5 billion saccharomyces boulardii and 30 billion of acidophilus and bifidobacterium. They come in two different capsules. The intestinal burning i get somewhere like 1-2 hours after specifically rifampin. Other abx are fine.

OH MY GOD. Only now I realise what is happening and why my intestines hurt while on rifampin.

I take 35-40 billion of probiotics a day and I'm currently on 600 mg of rifampin and 500 mg of azithromycin. This isn't a huge dose, if rifampin was substituted for any other abx, even 5-10 billion of probiotics would work. I was fine on levaquin and bactrim and others.

But since Rifampin is such a crappy drug, it is excreted through stool. WHICH MEANS THIS crap IS INHIBITING BACTERIA IN THE GUT EVEN AFTER BEING METABOLIZED THERE AND THROUGH THE LIVER.

This is the reason why your stool changes it's color to orange. Rifampin is excreted 60-65% through faeces.

Tell me people, I can't be the only one who's stool changes color from brown to orange on rifampin and whose intestines hurt while on It? This drug is bad and old, I have no idea why LLMD and researchers use it for Bart/Lyme, for TB it's understandable, TB is a lethal infection with a high mortality rate, Bart/Lyme on the other hand rarely cause someone to die, they just become chronically disabled. Taking Rifampin for months to years in trying to treat Bart/Lyme is like changing one disability for another. I'm scared that rifampin use long term can lead to intestinal damage or bowel cancer. This drug is excreted through the stool, actively inhibiting bacteria even after full metabolism.


Rifampin is bad.

Post Edited (recoveryguy) : 10/15/2021 11:44:11 AM (GMT-6)

Girlie said...
When I was on Rifampin my urine changed to a burnt orange colour…

I thought it was hard on the kidneys ??

If someone takes high dosages infrequently (let's say 1200 mg once a week) then there is a chance of developing some sort of antibodies to rifampin which can lead to kidney issues. It means that the immune system from this infrequent but high dose use can possibly eventually see rifampin as an allergen and try to get rid of it by making antibodies. When the person tries to take rifampin after developing such antibodies, he might experience a direct injury to the kidneys. That's what I understood from reading the internet, but I could be wrong.


However, to me it's more surprising that the mechanism of rifampin excretion makes it so it colors stool, which means that actual antibiotic is absorbed into the poop, which then is traveling through the intestines causing beneficial bacteria inhibition, leading to inflammation and burning discomfort. Other antibiotics like levaquin are 100% absorbed from intestines into the blood stream and is excreted more than 90% through urine. That's why levaquin doesn't cause these intestinal discomforts.