Visit the Microscopic Colitis Foundation Website
So, as many of you know I started having D again in July. I did have a few glutenings but it has not gotten better. So I finally broke down and did one more round of stool testing ordered by my GP a couple weeks ago (mind you I've done this at least twice before with absolutely nothing wrong found so even though I got the collection bottles in early August, I didn't bother untill a few weeks ago). I figured this was my last step before ordering the soy, egg, dairy and yeast tests from Enterolab.
Well, when I called at the end of last week to find out the results I was told all were negative except there was one they needed clarification on. Then they said the nurse practitioner I see wanted to see me for a blood pressure check and follow-up on the stool stuff since I reported that I still was having problems and was going to persue food sensitivities. So I was supposed to go in this coming Wednesday.
Well, last night I started feeling like I was getting a UTI. In the past when I feel that way, I chug the cranberry juice and it goes away. So, the best thing I had this morning was dried cranberries at the office. I had a couple 100 calorie packs of those before lunch when I figured I'd run to the store and get juice. Well, since some of those cranberries showed up in some urgent D just before lunch (at least I think they did...I didn't investigate too closely, but I can't think what I'd have eaten yesterday to look like that), I decided to call the doc about the UTI.
So, turns out, not only do I have a UTI, but that test that they were getting clarification on shows that I have staph. Now this is the part I need you researchers to notice: She said the response she got from the pathologist at Fletcher Allen hospital (Burlington, VT...home of the UVM Med School) where the tests were done, was that on the test for C-Diff, they now look for two things in a spectrum. They way she described it to me was that they look at a broad range of staph.....(long word that I don't know), and a short range under which the C-Diff bug would be seen. Well, turns out what I have is the broad range one.
So, now I'm on Bactrin for the UTI for 3 days, then I get to start on vancomycin for 10 days afterward to kill off this staph bug. Apparently she is trying the vancomycin because the usual antibiotic of choice for C-Diff targets that specific small range bug and vancomycin covers the broad range. So she prescibed that for 10 days at a middle of the road dose.
Has anyone ever heard something like this? Could this have caused my MC, or been lying in wait all this time anyway? Anyone have experience with vancomycin? I already have D so I'm sure I can handle whatever is thrown at me. And I'll keep drinking my yogurt for breakfast!
Katy
Here's a new one - Cause of MC?
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kate_ce1995
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Hi Katy,
Are you saying that you have Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus? MRSA? That's what it sounds like, because Vacomycin is the antibiotic of choice for treating it.
Like the staph germs, C. diff is getting to be so difficult to treat these days, that I really think that it's a waste of time to try the Flagyl treatment first. It almost never works, anymore, and the patient just has to suffer for a couple of extra weeks, before using Vancomycin to actually control the infection.
Be sure to take the full course of treatment, because you don't want to have any of those puppies still on their feet, when the treatment ends.
http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/jmmc/abstr ... 29!8091!-1
Sunny had to take Vancomycin less than a year ago, when Flagyl failed to eliminate her C. diff, and three or four years ago, Christine, (tendertummy), had exactly the same thing happen.
Vancomycin is one of the few remaining tools available to fight the so-called "Super Bugs"
Tex
Are you saying that you have Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus? MRSA? That's what it sounds like, because Vacomycin is the antibiotic of choice for treating it.
Like the staph germs, C. diff is getting to be so difficult to treat these days, that I really think that it's a waste of time to try the Flagyl treatment first. It almost never works, anymore, and the patient just has to suffer for a couple of extra weeks, before using Vancomycin to actually control the infection.
Be sure to take the full course of treatment, because you don't want to have any of those puppies still on their feet, when the treatment ends.
Sure it could have caused your current episode of MC, (or at least your current episode of D). (I suppose it's possible that you might be having D from the staph infection, without actually having an MC episode, but dysbiosis has been documented to cause UC, and it has long been suspected of triggering MC). Regarding how long it's been there - it probably was the result of your last antibiotic treatment. Do you recall when that was? Did you take any antibiotics back in May or June? I'm just basing this on the fact that the current thinking is that GI staph infections are typically antibiotic-related.Katy wrote:Has anyone ever heard something like this? Could this have caused my MC, or been lying in wait all this time anyway?
http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/jmmc/abstr ... 29!8091!-1
Sunny had to take Vancomycin less than a year ago, when Flagyl failed to eliminate her C. diff, and three or four years ago, Christine, (tendertummy), had exactly the same thing happen.
Vancomycin is one of the few remaining tools available to fight the so-called "Super Bugs"
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
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kate_ce1995
- Rockhopper Penguin
- Posts: 1321
- Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 5:53 pm
- Location: Vermont
I did take an antibiotic in late May or early June for a sinus infection. When this flared up in late July my doc figured it had been long enough that that wasn't the cause of the D (at least recognizing that antibiotics can cause D).
Wouldn't I have gotten much sicker though if this had been lingering that long? I mean, until about 3 or 4 weeks ago, I was feeling fine, except for the D. But my energy has been good and everything. The last 3 to 4 weeks I've been tired, but, I've been blaming that on the change of season and the fact I was getting up in the dark and then it was dark within an hour of my getting home from work.
She didn't say MRSA. I don't know how may staph bugs there are. Quite a few, I know. What she did specifically say was that she was using the Vancomycin covers the wide spectrum, and the drug for C-Diff targets the narrow part of the range. She used what I assume was the generic brand name for the C-Diff and it didn't ring a bell so I don't remember what it was. She didn't say Flagyl.
Hopefully, this will knock it out. The UTI is much improved already (yeah!). But this morning I had a bit of dizziness that I usually associate with my benign positional vertigo. At least if that continues, I know how to fix it. My ear feels clogged up this morning, so I'm hoping that it "drains" throughout the day and that is the culprit of that. I decided to work from home anyway. I do have to run to a job site, but that is only 20 minutes from home as opposed to the office which is 45. And I have to come home early to man the polls this afternoon...I'm cornering people to sign a petition to get our Community Band funding on the March ballot...not my favorite job in the world, but it does need to get done and my work schedule is flexible enough that I can spend some time doing that today.
Katy
Wouldn't I have gotten much sicker though if this had been lingering that long? I mean, until about 3 or 4 weeks ago, I was feeling fine, except for the D. But my energy has been good and everything. The last 3 to 4 weeks I've been tired, but, I've been blaming that on the change of season and the fact I was getting up in the dark and then it was dark within an hour of my getting home from work.
She didn't say MRSA. I don't know how may staph bugs there are. Quite a few, I know. What she did specifically say was that she was using the Vancomycin covers the wide spectrum, and the drug for C-Diff targets the narrow part of the range. She used what I assume was the generic brand name for the C-Diff and it didn't ring a bell so I don't remember what it was. She didn't say Flagyl.
Hopefully, this will knock it out. The UTI is much improved already (yeah!). But this morning I had a bit of dizziness that I usually associate with my benign positional vertigo. At least if that continues, I know how to fix it. My ear feels clogged up this morning, so I'm hoping that it "drains" throughout the day and that is the culprit of that. I decided to work from home anyway. I do have to run to a job site, but that is only 20 minutes from home as opposed to the office which is 45. And I have to come home early to man the polls this afternoon...I'm cornering people to sign a petition to get our Community Band funding on the March ballot...not my favorite job in the world, but it does need to get done and my work schedule is flexible enough that I can spend some time doing that today.
Katy
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kate_ce1995
- Rockhopper Penguin
- Posts: 1321
- Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 5:53 pm
- Location: Vermont
http://patients.about.com/od/atthehospital/a/hais.htm
"Perhaps surprisingly, most of these organisms are present naturally in our environment without making healthy people sick. About one-third of people are "colonized" with the bacteria staph aureus, meaning it lives on the skin in the noses of people without causing disease. Approximately one percent of people are colonized with the antibiotic resistant form of staph aureus (known as MRSA.) The percentage is higher for people who have been recently hospitalized."
This paragraph was from the link above. It might be the non-resistant one. As she said, she'd never seen it on a stool test before. Which I infered to mean she was aware of the bug.
"Perhaps surprisingly, most of these organisms are present naturally in our environment without making healthy people sick. About one-third of people are "colonized" with the bacteria staph aureus, meaning it lives on the skin in the noses of people without causing disease. Approximately one percent of people are colonized with the antibiotic resistant form of staph aureus (known as MRSA.) The percentage is higher for people who have been recently hospitalized."
This paragraph was from the link above. It might be the non-resistant one. As she said, she'd never seen it on a stool test before. Which I infered to mean she was aware of the bug.
The generic term for Flagyl is metronidazole. It's effective for many anaerobic bacteria, and little critters such as Giardia. C. diff is an anaerobic bacterium, of course. Staphylococcus bacteria are aerobic, and gram-positive, so metronidazole won't handle them.
Vancomycin is a narrow-spectrum antibiotic, that is effective against gram-positive aerobic bacteria, including MRSA, and anaerobic bacteria, including C. diff.
http://www.ashp.org/Import/PRACTICEANDP ... spx?id=132
Bacteriostatic means that it works by preventing bacteria from dividing, (propagating). Bacteriocidal means that it kills bacteria directly.
Okay, looking at this, since staph bacteria are aerobic, they are not likely to be as aggressive in an anaerobic environment, (such as the lower part of the GI tract), as they would be where oxygen is freely available, (such as on the skin, or in the respiratory tract, or even in the bloodstream). That could explain why it took so long for them to become symptomatic It would appear that you have some kind of staph infection, which may or may not be methicillin-resistant.
Those statistics are for the general population. The percentage of carriers of staph aureus among the staff of hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, etc., rises to around 50 to 60 % and higher. For MRSA, among those same cohorts, the percentages rise to around 5 to 15 percent, and higher, with the highest percentages found in ICU facilities, interestingly enough. That last point in itself, indicates the MRSA link with increased, (but obviously inadequate), sterile conditions, and elevated usage of antibiotics. Here's a reference on the MRSA carrier rates among hospital staff. Note that many of the ER workers, for example, actually have active MRSA infections. Is it any wonder that it's so easy to pick up an infection around hospitals?
http://tahilla.typepad.com/mrsawatch/ho ... index.html
Tex
Vancomycin is a narrow-spectrum antibiotic, that is effective against gram-positive aerobic bacteria, including MRSA, and anaerobic bacteria, including C. diff.
From:Vancomycin is active against gram-positive bacteria, including staphylococcal species, streptococcal species, and enterococcal species. At concentrations achievable in vivo, vancomycin is bacteriostatic against enterococcal species and bacteriocidal against other susceptible bacteria. The drug has no clinically significant activity against gram-negative bacteria.4-7 Since 1989, microbial resistance to vancomycin has increased markedly, raising concerns about overuse and inappropriate use of this agent.8,9
Vancomycin injection is labeled for use in serious or severe infections that cannot be treated with beta-lactam anti-infectives, including4,5:
* Severe staphylococcal infections, including infections caused by methicillin-resistant staphylococci, in patients who cannot receive beta-lactam anti-infectives, infections that are refractory to beta-lactam anti-infectives, or infections caused by beta-lactam-resistant staphylococci. Infections that may be treated include endocarditis, septicemia, and infections of the bone, lower respiratory tract, and skin and skin structure.
* Initial treatment of infections when methicillin-resistant staphylococcus is the suspected causative organism, until the organism is identified through microbial cultures. Infections that may be treated include endocarditis, septicemia, and infections of the bone, lower respiratory tract, and skin and skin structure.
* Treatment of endocarditis caused by staphylococcus, streptococcus, or diphtherococcus.
* Oral treatment of antimicrobial-associated colitis caused by Clostridium difficile, when the injectable product is administered orally. Parenteral vancomycin alone is ineffective for this infection.
* Prevention of bacterial endocarditis associated with dental procedures or surgical procedures of the upper respiratory tract in patients with penicillin allergy and heart disease (congenital, rheumatic, valvular, or other acquired heart diseases).
http://www.ashp.org/Import/PRACTICEANDP ... spx?id=132
Bacteriostatic means that it works by preventing bacteria from dividing, (propagating). Bacteriocidal means that it kills bacteria directly.
Okay, looking at this, since staph bacteria are aerobic, they are not likely to be as aggressive in an anaerobic environment, (such as the lower part of the GI tract), as they would be where oxygen is freely available, (such as on the skin, or in the respiratory tract, or even in the bloodstream). That could explain why it took so long for them to become symptomatic It would appear that you have some kind of staph infection, which may or may not be methicillin-resistant.
Perhaps surprisingly, most of these organisms are present naturally in our environment without making healthy people sick. About one-third of people are "colonized" with the bacteria staph aureus, meaning it lives on the skin in the noses of people without causing disease. Approximately one percent of people are colonized with the antibiotic resistant form of staph aureus (known as MRSA.) The percentage is higher for people who have been recently hospitalized
Those statistics are for the general population. The percentage of carriers of staph aureus among the staff of hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, etc., rises to around 50 to 60 % and higher. For MRSA, among those same cohorts, the percentages rise to around 5 to 15 percent, and higher, with the highest percentages found in ICU facilities, interestingly enough. That last point in itself, indicates the MRSA link with increased, (but obviously inadequate), sterile conditions, and elevated usage of antibiotics. Here's a reference on the MRSA carrier rates among hospital staff. Note that many of the ER workers, for example, actually have active MRSA infections. Is it any wonder that it's so easy to pick up an infection around hospitals?
http://tahilla.typepad.com/mrsawatch/ho ... index.html
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.