Combo Antibiotic treatment - PART I

During my last flare I was one sick puppy. Drenching night sweats, skin lesions on my arms and legs, eye inflammation, bloody diarrhea 20 times a day. I lost 5 pounds a week for 50 lbs. Crippling arthritis where I could barely climb stairs or make a fist. To cap it off I developed an abscess.

The doctor prescribed a 3 week course of Flagyl for the abscess and that jump-started me into remission. Immediately my diarrhea ended, skin lesions disappeared, my eyes went back to normal and all my arthritis disappeared. So I have no trouble believing that your combo antibiotic treatment is effective.

While I was on the Flagyl I took a probiotic yeast called saccharomyces boulardii which is immune to antibiotics. I did not want to leave any room in my gut for the bad guys like C Diff or anything else to take over again as the bacteria were dying off. When the Flagyl ended I took a diverse set of probiotics including VSL#3DS every day to maintain my remission.

Monitoring my diet and supplements like psyllium seed with probiotics seems to work for maintaining remission but I don’t know if I could have escaped my flare so quickly without taking the antibiotics.

Excited about starting the antibiotic combo therapy. I know I will have to be patient because even if it does help, it may take some time to kick in.

Miracles,

Glad to hear about your continued improvement. It appears from reading about the study that some people can have improvements right through the first year after taking the combo.

As for me, I already notice that the horrible smell is completely gone after only the first day of taking the antibiotics. The smell was getting really disgusting, so it's nice to be rid of that at least.

My GI doc definitely leans towards an autoimmune cause for U.C. but was open minded enough to let me try antibiotics anyways. I suppose it is pretty hard to argue against the study results since the number of people who got better was way beyond the placebo group.

Looks like we may finally have another option for U.C.ers to try beyond the traditional approaches of steroids, mesalamine, imuran and biologics.

Yes my stink went away on antibiotics but it's back when I poo.

Hi C_G_K

It takes between 3 to 6 months after the antibiotic therapy for the colon to 'recolonise' itself with healthy bacteria. FT transplant could speed up this process but you are never guaranteed that the donors stool is free from fusobacterium or other UC causing bacteria. I would just wait for 6.

I am not taking any maintenance drugs as drugs stopped working for me and my doctor told me that I have no choice but to have surgery. I have to thank Diaperman and themiracles for this thread

Best of luck

Hi

C_G_K

Day 3 was terrible for me. I had plenty of gas, flu like symptoms and endless bowel movements. It was on my second week when I started to see the benefits of this therapy. Don't give up

Hey guys, I have the antibiotics and actually had started another thread related to this... but did not begin taking the antibiotics yet. My primary doctor prescribed these medicines for me, but warned of the possibility of C-Diff. I am now getting more motivated to begin the two weeks, and simply do what I can to bring down the risk of C-Diff.

From what Babeinthewoods posted, taking saccharomyces boulardii could be beneficial in preventing C-Diff while on antibiotics.

Also, Mudua suggests a couple other things...
-Take 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda in a half a glass of water once daily to neutralize the butyric acid.
-Take selenium and Vitamin E to help heal the colon.

Anything else anyone has suggestions on? I'm thinking of heading in to the health stores tomorrow, picking up these extra supplements, and beginning the antibiotics tomorrow afternoon/evening.

My present symptoms would be rated as moderate. The last 10 days my number of BM's has jumped around quite a bit: 4, 3, 4, 3, 2, 8, 6, 3, 6, 4. The 3, 2, 8 set of days in the middle were because of Lomotil... which brought down the number of BM's for two days, then I had a backlash once my colon was again mobilized. Whoops! Anyways I have had blood for the last 17 days now, and had not had it for quite a long time before that, except for a very minute trace every once in a while. My inflammation is not very bad, thanks in large part to turmeric powder I believe. Urgency issues are medium, as I still have that urge sometimes, but I have control over it somehow. I basically still need to poop too much, but I can drive and be social still... I just sometimes have to have a poop prematurely to prepare for whatever it is I'm going out for. In general my poop is never that foul smelling, relatively anyways. Once in a while it gets worse... which seems to happen when the stool is less formed and urgency worse.

I will update you guys when I begin. Thank you for all the updates that you who have tried this have posted.

hey C_G_K

give us an update!

I got a appointment aug 10th with my GI. I am so excited to start this. He already said he "might" prescribe it for me. I think I will do a good job convincing him though.

imagardener2 said...
Thoreau

How do you know your inflammation is not very bad? Bleeding would signal severe inflammation for me, and it's something my doctors never really explained clearly to me so that I worked to stop it.

Bleeding seemed less important to me because it did not impact my life like urgency and D did. However when the bleeding stopped the other symptoms slowly got better.

I know how much you've been working to get better and wish you the best with the a-b treatment.

Maybe I don't know. My thinking has been that inflammation leads to urgency issues. I'm not having urgency anywhere near what I was last year when I was deep into a bad flare. Throughout this year I have been able to decrease the incidences where I felt I needed a toilet within minutes significantly. My colon hurts where it's bleeding, it hurt today a decent amount. Yet... the last BM I've had today was around 2 pm, and it's now 11:20 pm. Thus I believe that the inflammation is probably much less than last December, when I had my last c-scope and was having more colon problems... although less bleeding than I am having lately.

Quick update.

Day 8 showed some definite improvement. 8 trips to the bathroom, about half what it was just a couple of days ago. Still high obviously, but moving in the right direction. Stool mostly formed now again.

My wife commented that I seemed "perkier".

Main problems remaining are too many BMs, still too much gas, as well as some pain and nausea when going. Appetite is healthy at mealtime.

Anyone else trying this? Please give an update if you can!

Mudua I am so glad to hear that you are doing well. It really feels good eh.

CGK- I did the combo, you should get better when you stop the antibiotics. Hang in there.

Hey guys, I'm getting closer to trying this. My general physician's assistant prescribed the three antibiotics to me about 10 days ago... but my gut instinct told me I should go over things with my GI doctor just to be safe. It was a huge blessing to be able to see my GI doctor much sooner than I had previously been told I would, and an equally great thing that he actually told me in a positive manner that he didn't have a problem with me trying this combination antibiotic treatment. He actually wants to know how it goes!

Now one question: Where can I find the bicarbonate soda??? I think it was Mudua that said it helps with the butryic acid. I went to whole foods and target tonight and did not find any. I did pick up a bottle of saccharomyces boulardii, as well as selenium. It turns out the CoQ10 tablets I take every morning contain 300%+ of the vitamin E needed for an average person... so that will do, especially in conjunction with a multi-vitamin.

I am waiting for a bit longer to begin this treatment. I hope that by August 7th I can begin this. Can any of you that have done the treatment tell me if you were able to function at your jobs and doing things like grocery shopping? I have this fear of not being able to oversee work projects without having to run to the bathroom a lot. Also am cautious because of the possible "getting worse before you get better" situation.

I have the okay to take time off if necessary, but I'm self employed and only work with my dad. He's going to get overworked if I can't make it in... so I'd at least like to know what to expect.

Thanks for all your updates everyone!