Question about Rifampin

[airial95]

Our son has been on antibiotics pretty consistently since January 2009. He went from azith, to cefdinir, now augmentin. We have been EXTREMELY fortunate to have avoided any gut issues (knocking on wood now), supplementing probiotics primarily with active culture yogurts at lunch and snack time or good belly juice when I can get it.

 

I've always felt guilty that we're not doing more probiotics, but if he has no issues - I don't want to overload the poor little guy with more supplements than he's already taking!! And we've worked very closely with our ped to keep an eye on things.

 

The ID we saw last week wanted to give him a 7 day course of rifampin on top of his current Augmentin. He started it this morning. She seemed dismissive about my questions about probiotics with the rifampin - saying that if what we're doing now should be good enough (for the record, I wasn't that impressed with her overall).

 

The question that I throw out there for others that have used rifampin - how bad were the side effects for you? Did you increase the probiotics while on it? Since it's a short course, is this something I should even be concerned with??

 

If we can continue to manage as we are, all the better. We've had to name each of his medicines/supplements/vitamins after weapon names from his favorite video game (Ratchet and Clank) explaining that it attacks the "bad guys" in his brain. Fortunately, just this weekend he finally got the super cool big guns - which shoot red lasers, and the rifampin suspension happens to be reddish so it was a no brainer, but quite frankly, I'm running out of weapons to name things!!

[LNN]

We haven't had issues with rifampin in and of itself. What I have noticed is that DS has a threshold of just how much abx he can tolerate in total. He's ok with 1 or 2 abx (for lyme). But at times when we've added an additional abx for a short time, I see yeast behaviors and loose stools. He's never had a problem with a particular abx (including rifampin) but has had problems when there's just too much assaulting his gut at any given time. (caveat - we have always supplemented with probiotics).

 

Since you're doing the rifampin for a short time, it might not hurt to add a probiotic. It's not like you'll be adding an additional pill indefinitely (unless you happen to like what you see). But far easier to be proactive than to have to fight a yeast or c. diff problem after it's developed.

 

BTW - rifampin is a little better absorbed on an empty stomach, so in a perfect world, I try to give it 30 min before a meal. But that rarely happens. I pass it along FWIW. Remember to give probiotics 2 hrs away from abx. Our doc likes to give it at bedtime so the probiotics can sit in the gut with less motility and also because stomach acids are at their lowest over night.

 

One other thought - you can also fight yeast with garlic pills - they're very small, easy to swallow and no taste.

[philamom]

But far easier to be proactive than to have to fight a yeast or c. diff problem after it's developed.

 

 

Exactly! My daughter had 3 c-diff infections in the past, and it can be very difficult to treat. Plus, you then have to always be careful on what antibiotics are used. There are some abx my daughter will never be able to take (ex- clindamycin). Your chances of getting a second/third infection increase after having c-diff.

 

Maybe you could add in a Florastor or Culturelle packet, since he is so young. Also like the Jarrow brand for young ones.

 

edit- love the weapon names. good luck!

Edited April 3, 2012 by philamom

[minimaxwell]

Just wanted to mention that Dr. T told us to stay away from active yogurts as they have strep in them . Look for Streptococcus thermophilus or S. thermophilus.