Dr. Beals/Dr. Jones

[Wilma Jenks]

my child has clostridia, has 166 on cam kinase test, high ammonia(???) also a possitive band 41 on test. still have to look into lymes.

scott smith is starting by treating the clostridia with vincomycen. i just spoke to dr. beals and he said that we should be going after a couple things at once and mentioned injecting her with antibiotis or something too. he mentioned dr. jones in conneticut for lymes, but he also said he can treat lyme too. can someone help me figure out a direction to go in. do i add another doctor to the mix or just have scott treat the clostridia for now with vincomycen?

[Phasmid]

I certainly wouldn't want to suggest avoiding treating anything and everything that needs treating, but here's my two cents:

 

I really feel that doing one thing at a time helps the whole situation. My son responded really, really well to vancomycin. It was good for me to do one thing at a time, as having one variable allowed me to say that there was a clear association. Also, if there is an issue with one drug, you know which caused a problem. If more than one at a time, and there is a side effect or something, you can address that clearly.

 

Vancomycin for Clostridium difficile is effective very quickly. If it is going to work at all, you will know very soon. The standard treatment is 14 days, followed by another course usually. There is a great deal in the literature about the need for tapering. We ended up needing a taper when we had relapse upon stopping. We tapered for one month! My son's G.I. doc didn't know the most recent protocol (didn't see it all that often) so I spoke directly to the author of a paper published near the time we were dealing with it.

 

The cholestramine we used along with the vancomycin clearly impacted the effectiveness. Even spacing it out away from the antibiotic, we saw a diminished effect. We stopped altogether and I used a fiber supplement.