l_kelly

Hi all, I think we will be going ahead with vancomycin for my 7 year old daughter. She has very high strep titers and they identified an overgrowth of strep in her gut via stool sample. Any advice/experience with giving this abx to a child? I believe they will want us to slowly work up the dosage. Side effects? Recommendations? Thanks in advance, Lisa

My oldest had walking pnuemonia last year but not Ella. My other children haven't had any problems with strep. I actually have had some problems with it and have cryptic tonsils (tonsil stones, etc.). I think we are going to go along with the llmd's plan of vanco (plus some other homeopathic remedies) to debulk the infection and then retest blood levels and eventually the gut too. After hearing what folks here have to say it seems like a prudent course. I don't want to ignore things now and regret it later on.

Well, that is interesting info about the different labs. I had wondered why the lab said ">1360"...that makes perfect sense. Ella is not on any antibiotics now. She was on ceftin to cover both the strep and the lyme. The doc wants to just do vanco now instead of ceftin to target the strep in her gut...that's where they think it is hiding. Yes, I am beginning to think we are lucky as well. I'm just trying to figure out if we are truly lucky or just borrowing trouble. I do have other children (one older and one younger: 9 and 4). Ella's eating really hasn't improved at all. She is a very picky eater. We don't make special meals for her...we are just waiting for her eating habits to mature as she grows older. What is mycoplasma pneumonia? I'm not familiar with that. Thank you so much! It is so helpful to "speak" to folks so knowledgeable. Other people I've talked to have no idea what I'm talking about.

Hmmm. The first 4 were from Quest and the last 2 were from Labcorp. Can that make a big difference?

Thanks for the speedy response. Ella has had stomach aches on and off for a while. For a bit we thought they were from riding in the car, then we thought they were due to her diet (she's not a very good eater). She tends to be dramatic and does have some nasty tantrums. But we always chalked that up to just being her. The lyme doc said she could detect the slightest bit of inflammation in her joints and Ella has recently started "cracking" her ankles (which the lyme doc said is how children often respond to an achy feeling). All lyme tests at this point have been negative (which doesn't actually mean a lot). But the doc said with our early response to the bite we should be in good shape. We just need to keep our eyes open for any future symptoms. The lyme doc also said something about the anti-Dnase numbers typically going up before going down with treatment. Haven't seen anyone else say that. Thanks again for your help.

Hi there. I'm trying to do some research about my daughter and I've found that you folks are very knowledgeable and helpful. So, I'm hoping maybe you can help me out. My daughter (age 7) had a bite on her back that looked suspicious to me (bullseye rash). Her ped. didn't want to do anything about it so I took her to a well-known Lyme doc in my area to make sure we took care of it properly. They started treating her for Lyme and ran some bloodwork. While running the bloodwork they discovered that she had abnormally high levels of strep. She occasionally complains about stomach aches so they did a stool sample and also found strep in her gut. The doc there is pretty concerned about these levels and has mentioned that it could potentially cause reactive arthritis, PANDAS, etc. She wants to treat it pretty agressively with antibiotics in an attempt to debulk the infection. I am feeling a little bit torn because my daughter doesn't really have a negative symptoms. So, it's hard to treat her agressively. Here are the results of the blood work that she has had once a month through the summer: Date....Strep..ASO..DNaseB 5/10:...400....686...1360 6/10:...400....675...1360 7/10:...400....625...1360 8/10:...400....480...1360 9/10:...200....???...1920 11/10:..200....343....?? From 5/10 to 9/10 she was on Ceftin. They wanted us to start Vancomycin but at that point I was starting to question whether we were doing the right thing. They suggested my daughter have her tonsils removed and recommended an ENT. That ENT said her tonsils really don't look like they should be removed and suggested I talk to an Infectious Disease doc about her blood levels. The Infectious Disease doc said her levels are indicative of a past strep infection and we should stop putting antibiotics in my daughter. So, now I feel stuck. The lyme doc says she understands our hesitation but feels we have an opportunity to prevent some pretty serious problems that she has seen kids get down the road. Do you guys have any experience or advice to offer? Do these levels in her bloodwork look way out of wack to you? Thanks so much for your time and insight. Lisa