Please be Careful

[kim]

I had posted recently about my oldest son having a couple of moles removed and getting a staph infection in one of the sites. I had told the dermatologist that he was on a vitamin program for a tic syndrome.

His quick reply was. "if it's working keep doing it." He later prescribed Doxycycline for the staph. I had given the Doxycycline along with his usual supplements. A couple of weeks later there was a reoccurrence of the staph, the pediatrician prescribed Keflex, but phoned me afterwards to say that the culture from the lab was recommending Cipro. I googled Cipro, and was not thrilled with the possible side effects, although rare, it just didn't look like a drug that I wanted to give a 13 yr. old with tics. I called the Rite Aid Pharmacist and explained the whole situation, he agreed that the Keflex should be effective and safer, but said the Cipro was very effective for staph and expensive, so don't throw it out. I made the decision to go with the Keflex. I am aware of the MRSA staph infections, and wish I could have discussed this with the Dr., but it's just not possible, as I knew he would feel pressured about going against the system recommendations, and get annoyed with me, as they will not acknowledge TS/tics as a neuro condition, only a minor annoyance with no real medical significance. A side effect of Cipro can be tremors, brain swelling ,etc.

 

The point here was, when I was looking at Cipro, I decided google Doxycycline too.

http://www.drugs.com/doxycycline.html

Do not take iron supplements, multivitamins, calcium supplements, antacids, or laxatives within 2 hours of taking doxycycline. These products may reduce the effectiveness of doxycycline.

 

I believe another site mentioned zinc and magnesium too. You will not always find this info. on the first couple of sites you look at, some will say "tell your Dr. if you are taking any herbal supplements," but they don't elaborate.

 

I had read about this effect with some seizure medications and calcium a while back too. I just want everyone to be sure that they are very careful about ANY medications that are being taken along with supplements. Even if your reg. Dr. knows what you/your child is taking, they may ignore it completely when prescribing meds, so you will have to check with your Alt. Dr. a Pharmacist, or do a through search yourself. This error may have caused my son to have to take a second antibiotic. I had assumed since I had made the Dermatologist aware, that it would be taken into consideration. The staph lesion popped up in a totally different place from where the incisions were, so obviously, it was lurking in his system.

 

It was not fun trying to give the medications, his supplements, and a probiotic, twice. The head shaking flair coincided with the staph appearance, which was really upsetting after so long tic free. I wanted to increase his vitamins, add extra vit. C, zinc and mag taurate, and that was really hard to do, as I wanted to keep supplements away from even the Keflex (although I don't think it was necessary-just being cautious the 2nd time around) He was taking it 3 times a day, and I was trying to keep 4 hours btwn the med and his vits.

 

His head shaking flair is about 90% better currently. I really feel like his system was taxed with the mole removal, stitches and then the staph. When he started the second antibiotic, I thought it would clear the staph and we would start to see an improvement. That didn't happen. The tic stayed the same, or got worse on the Keflex. It was only when we increased his supplements that he started improving. We only went from 5 up to 8 of Bonnie's vits. and extra of the things that I mentioned above. I have to confess I had a bottle of carnosine in my hand, but knew in my heart, this wasn't the right time to rush into a new supplement, without supervision. There was too much going on. We also went back on the Houston enzymes recently, as I feel they will help with his wheat sensitivities, and umm,umm...elimination. The Peptizyde seems to have that effect.