Prophylactic Antibiotics and Strep

[thereishope]

Let's see what antibiotics have been helping/not helping this season. I didn't have room to add if your child was not on a prophylactic and did not contract strep. So, if you fall in that catagory, maybe just leave a comment. As usual, read all options and you can check as many boxes as needed.

 

If you did not contract strep, you can put yourself into the "other" catagory on the second question. "Other" is also be appropriate if you we given an antibiotic not listed...they only allow 10 voting options.

Edited April 8, 2011 by Vickie

[dcmom]

My 2 pandas daughters have each had strep 3x. Once each prior to pandas onset, uneventful. Once each at initial pandas onset, two years ago. And last week.

 

At the time, older daughter was on zith and rifampin.

 

Younger daughter on zith and augmentin.

 

All daily treatment doses.

 

We have stopped everything and put them on clindamycin for ten days.

 

The younger one had been on the clinda for 8 days, and so far she is doing great. No more illness symptoms, no pandas symptoms. (knock wood, fingers crossed).

 

The older one has been on the clinda about 4 days, she is still very tired, and maybe the tiniest pandas increase so far.

 

Both will be recultured in about a week, and/ or as symptoms require.

[pixiesmommy]

I'm sorry- I clicked "other" along with all the "didn't help" options.

 

We have done treatment doses of ALL the meds you listed, sometimes 2 together (like now- for Pixie (PANDAS dd) Azith and Augmentin) and she tests positive while on those on even the rapid tests. (She had tonsils out 5 years ago)

 

I have been on multiple doses of Azith, Cipro, and now Doxy... I still get strep, but don't test positive even on the 72 hour, but have symptoms. (I had tonsils out 8 years ago) I'm now getting a combo of Minocycline and Azith (these listed are the only ones I'm not allergic to- and I'm doing Lyme protocol- so we'll see how that goes.)

 

3 yr old (possible PANDAS dd) has been on treatment dose of Cefdinir, Azith, and Augmentin, in all kinds of rotations and she still tests positive on rapids, plus exhibits OCD and increased separation anxiety. (She has tonsils)

 

DH tests strongly positive on treatment doses of Cefdinir and Augmentin (separately.) He is the only one of us w/no symptoms whatsoever, but always the first to show positive when we're swabbed. (Tonsils out 4 yrs ago)

 

ETA- we've also done tons of other things: diet change to eliminate things and add things in, strep nosodes, manuka honey, coconut products, xylitol, increased disinfecting of the house/cars, increased hand-washing, chiropractic/cranial/sacral therapy, nutritional response therapy, adn most recently started using a Hulda Clark Zapper

Edited April 8, 2011 by pixiesmommy

[thereishope]

You have no idea how much I wish I could make your family better. I just stare at your posts trying to think of something to offer you guys.I know your family will get better, you're such strong fighters, but like you probably think...why can't you get better sooner than later already.

 

I'm sorry- I clicked "other" along with all the "didn't help" options.

 

We have done treatment doses of ALL the meds you listed, sometimes 2 together (like now- for Pixie (PANDAS dd) Azith and Augmentin) and she tests positive while on those on even the rapid tests. (She had tonsils out 5 years ago)

 

I have been on multiple doses of Azith, Cipro, and now Doxy... I still get strep, but don't test positive even on the 72 hour, but have symptoms. (I had tonsils out 8 years ago) I'm now getting a combo of Minocycline and Azith (these listed are the only ones I'm not allergic to- and I'm doing Lyme protocol- so we'll see how that goes.)

 

3 yr old (possible PANDAS dd) has been on treatment dose of Cefdinir, Azith, and Augmentin, in all kinds of rotations and she still tests positive on rapids, plus exhibits OCD and increased separation anxiety. (She has tonsils)

 

DH tests strongly positive on treatment doses of Cefdinir and Augmentin (separately.) He is the only one of us w/no symptoms whatsoever, but always the first to show positive when we're swabbed. (Tonsils out 4 yrs ago)

 

ETA- we've also done tons of other things: diet change to eliminate things and add things in, strep nosodes, manuka honey, coconut products, xylitol, increased disinfecting of the house/cars, increased hand-washing, chiropractic/cranial/sacral therapy, nutritional response therapy, adn most recently started using a Hulda Clark Zapper

[Stephanie2]

Aye yi yi, Pixiesmommy! That's a lot of strep! And a lot of interventions! I am so sorry! I thought I had it bad with one of us always positive!

 

I will pray for you...

 

And by the way, you add to my resistance to remove tonsils. Just doesn't seem worth it. I almost wonder if it is counterproductive for some people.

[thereishope]

Thank you to those who answered the poll. Since a small amount answered, it's hard to really get anything out of it. Even for the Augmentin/Zith strep numbers.... We have to remember that more people are on those antibiotics to start with since those are the two most suggested on here so that may askew the numbers.

[JAG10]

Wow, I thought strep resistant to anything in the penicillin family was unheard of???? This is big news, no?

[Kayanne]

Wow, I thought strep resistant to anything in the penicillin family was unheard of???? This is big news, no?

I'm thinking it's pretty much the same thing we have been saying on this board for a while. Pen in a dish kills strep, but when you consider an actual infection in the body...it's a different set of circumstances.

 

I also think there is a difference between resistance and treatment failure. And this poll really doesn't take that into account. I wonder if a child was prescribed 20 or 30 days of the same antibiotic, would it take care of the strep?

[airial95]

We got strep 3 times last summer/fall while on proph azith. We switched to full dose Omnicef for 3 months. After 3 months, we were taken off the Omnicef for 2 months just to give him a rest (almost a year on - at about 85% normal when we took him off). A week before our 2 month follow up to see if we needed him back on abx, he tested postive.

 

This time though, it has been a different episode. The symptoms were different than what had become our classic indicators of infection/exposure. Not as violent, but far more rigid in the OCD.

 

Don't know for sure if the strep has been eradicated - we haven't gotten him retested. He was given a 90 day rx for Omnicef (LOVE our pediatrician who gets it. 90 day script with a positive swab, no questions!)

 

His sister tested postivie the same day he did, but she just did a 10 day run. Although starting last Thursday our son was showing an uptick in hyperactivity, meltdowns, etc... so we suspected exposure. Our daughter came home from school on Friday night complaining that her "neck hurts on the inside". (Always on a Friday night right??) We took her to the After Hours pediatrician for a swab, came back negative, but I'm not convinced. I'll likely take her in for another culture at the regular pedatrician this week.

[Stephanie2]

Wouldn't let me vote again. I just found out today that we had an augmentin failure in the house another positive strep test). Moving on to either exclusively homeopathy or omnicef to clear this infection.

[MomWithOCDSon]

I voted "Other" and "Other," as our diagnostic picture remains cloudy for me.

 

My DS doesn't "catch" strep so far as I know; more accurately, he "responds" to it and "carries" it. He's never had a positive swab or culture in his life; we have to have blood drawn to find it or the results of it via the increased titers. Our current pediatrician is "PANDAS-skeptical," so I walk a very fine line with her; she's been willing to prescribe and renew Augmentin XR prescriptions, so that's all I've really asked of her. The two blood draws we've done over the last two years were ordered by other doctors (after either lots of pleading or lots of money), but I don't want to aggravate our only existing abx source by pushing her to either order more tests or switch up the meds.

 

We've now had what I consider two clear exacerbations since beginning antibiotic therapy in October 2009. While we've tried to lower the abx dose and even tried ceasing it altogether on a couple of occassions, within about 8 days of the reduced and removed dose, DS's OCD begins to rise again. We've gone as long as 3 weeks without full dose abx (full dose meaning 1,000 mg. Augmentin XR, twice daily), but, inevitably, we return to the full dose when DS's increasing OCD continues to worsen and fails to either level out or dissipate over that time period.

 

Our pediatrician tells us that, though he isn't actively "catching" strep while on the abx, he can and will still react to exposure by mounting more antibodies in defense of the looming invader. Since he appears to be hyper-immune in almost every respect, and since he's never actually "caught" strep that we know of, I tend to buy her explanation. On top of which, we've seen increases in behaviors shortly on the heels of one of his friends or classmates being diagnosed with strep. If we had an endless supply of ASO and AntiDnase-B blood draw orders, we could have him tested after each suspected exposure and see what his antibodies are actually doing. Not realistic, though; he'd look and feel like a pin cushion.

 

So, for the time being, we continue on 1,000 mg. XR, twice daily, and we're seeking another pediatrician who might have a greater degree of knowledge and/or curiosity about DS's immune condition and help us explore maybe combining a couple of abx or maybe even switching to see if it might "jump start" his positive response or eventually throw him into a remission state that would at least afford us the opportunity to cut back on dosage.

 

The puzzle sits on the coffee table and NEVER gets completed!

[matis_mom]

Goodness gracious! I'm not going to go into detail but in short, abxs don't seem to be cutting it anymore in our household either. Are we growing our own brand of antibiotic-resistant bugs???

 

I was thinking maybe we can do another poll on treatment failures?

 

One interesting thing is I asked my pediatrician if they could test sensitivities for strep (instead of putting the child through round after round of abxs), and she said they don't do that for strep because they KNOW it is susceptible to penicillin (yet she herself admitted she has been seeing failures). Was she just blabbing??? Can one get a culture with sensitivities for STREP??? Or is it that maybe there is MORE THAN STREP in there?

Edited April 13, 2011 by mati's mom

[peglem]

Goodness gracious! I'm not going to go into detail but in short, abxs don't seem to be cutting it anymore in our household either. Are we growing our own brand of antibiotic-resistant bugs???

 

I was thinking maybe we can do another poll on treatment failures?

 

One interesting thing is I asked my pediatrician if they could test sensitivities for strep (instead of putting the child through round after round of abxs), and she said they don't do that for strep because they KNOW it is susceptible to penicillin (yet she herself admitted she has been seeing failures). Was she just blabbing??? Can one get a culture with sensitivities for STREP??? Or is it that maybe there is MORE THAN STREP in there?

My doc ordered a strep culture w/ sensitivities, but the culture came up neg (after positive rapid), so I know it can be ordered.

[Worried_Dad]

As I understand it, GAS does continue to be vulnerable to penicillin-based abx in vitro, but doctors / researchers acknowledge increasing failure rates in actual patients. There are a number of theories as to why - strep going intracellular, strep forming protective biofilms, etc. - but nobody knows for sure.

 

FYI: didn't know how to reflect this in the poll responses, but for our PANDAS ds, the dose of abx was as critical as the type. Our ds continued to contract GAS while on the original augmentin prophylactic dose of 500 mg daily. When we increased that to 1000 mg of aug XR twice daily, he stopped getting strep and started to recover. He still reacts to exposure (such as when his little brother had strep recently), but not nearly as severe a reaction as before the abx dosage increase.

 

 

Goodness gracious! I'm not going to go into detail but in short, abxs don't seem to be cutting it anymore in our household either. Are we growing our own brand of antibiotic-resistant bugs???

 

I was thinking maybe we can do another poll on treatment failures?

 

One interesting thing is I asked my pediatrician if they could test sensitivities for strep (instead of putting the child through round after round of abxs), and she said they don't do that for strep because they KNOW it is susceptible to penicillin (yet she herself admitted she has been seeing failures). Was she just blabbing??? Can one get a culture with sensitivities for STREP??? Or is it that maybe there is MORE THAN STREP in there?

[DebC]

I posted that our daughter was on zith prophylactically and contracted strep. Her test was negative due to the antibiotic she was on, but she had the sore throat and her best friend had strep so our doctor said it was a false negative and put her on augmentin. We saw a slight uptic in obsessive cleaning. However, no other symptoms surfaced so overall, the prophylactic kept the symptoms from ramping up as they would have done in the past. When our non-PANDAS son and I had strep in February, our PANDAS daughter did not catch it and was on her azith as a prophylactic and never had additional symptoms. They also switched her to 10 days of augmentin as a protection during that time. After which, we returned to the azith. This was a terrible year for strep at our schools!