Help, please - I have been infected with some sort of bacteria

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234_girl

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Sep 20, 2004
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Hi,

I spent 14 days on Dominican Republic in a five star hotel in Punta Cana (returned to Europe last week). All the time on DR I was experiencing diarhea and terrible abdonimal pain. When I got back home I was hospitalized for a day and diagnosed with acute dehydration and acute enterocolitis, but they never treated me with anything else than NaCl and some powder to compensate for the loss of the electrolites. They have no idea which bacteria "attacked" me and how to treat it. After three weeks (since the problem has started) I am still totally weak, have no energy, sleep most of the day, am dizzy... plus my C-reactive protein (CRP) is 115 (ideally there should be no trace of this protein) which indicates that something is really, really wrong. Does anybody have any idea as my doctors cannot tell me anything and all I can do is just waiting to get better and all the time the diarhea and the abdominal pain are exhausting me. Has anybody had similar problems after visiting DR?

Thanks for any help whatsoever. I am simply without ideas where and whom to turn to to make me feel better.

M.
 

POP Bad Boy

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Jun 27, 2004
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I'd place my bets....

......on the Giardia lamblia (giardiasis). I've seen many of my friends that come to visit get it.

In the US, up until now, they have never had a drug that worked fast. You had to take a drug (I forget the name) for 10 days or so and it made you have a terrible "metal" taste in your mouth.

I believe in Europe the drug Tinidazole (generic name) is available and works in one day. IT HAS RECENTLY BEEN APPROVED IN THE US (I believe August 2004). I'd ask the doctor for that for a "one day" treatment and see it it works. You need to take 2 500mg pills One time for the giardiasis.
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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This is a parasitic infection that

Is very rare in Europe. Take the advice of the posters and see a gastroenterologist.

This is the saame thing that infected the star baseball player Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees.

It is curable, so act fast.

You were very wise to pose this question on this board, by the way. And I am wondering what it was you ate or drank. Could you be more specific, when you feel better?

Thanks,

HB :D:D
 

toby

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Dec 8, 2003
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Excellent advice from Hillbilly and others . Listen to there wise words and seek help as soon as possible. Your family doctor will need to refer you to a specialist (possibly need to ask for a doctor of tropical diseases). Keep being aggressive as to your request for treatment. May I ask if you have other health issues that may be causing your prolonged symptoms. (Heart /circular/organ(liver kidney, immunity). Make sure you do not have any conflicting medications that may make the antibiotic treatment less effective. And hang in there, a quick fix is not easy to find any where.
Let us know how your treatment is going and our best wishes as to a speedy recovery.
Cheers Toby
P.S. Keep drinking lots and lots and lots of water. You were dehydrated and may be rebounding.
 

Peter & Alex

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May 3, 2003
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Try....

Try a dose of ZENTEL (albendazol) that seems to work here locally.
Tablet now and another in 14 days. Can't do you any harm as it just kills bacteria/worm and then sorts out any eggs it may have left behind.
Treats the following:
Uncinarias - (Ancytostoma duodenale. Necator americanus)
Lombrices - (Ascaris lumbricoides)
Oxiuros - (Enterobius vermicularis)
Tricocefalos - (Trichuris trichura)
Estrongiloides - (Strongyloides stercolaris)
Tenias - (Taenia spp. (solitarias))
Giardias - (Giardia lamblia)
All above are general local bugs which can be picked up easily and will give you the symptoms you have.
Get well!
(good advice to keep up your water intake but also I find that natural un-sweetened yoghurt every couple of hours soon sorts out bugs).
 
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Lechero

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Aug 11, 2004
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You MUST replace the "good" bacteria that you will wipe out with the medication. Either yogurt or take MEGA Acidopholus available at any GNC or Rx.
 

Tory Dent

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Sep 3, 2004
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Giardia

This is an awful disease, but it is curable. It is usually contracted by swimming in lake or river water that is not salty. It is also possible to contract from drinking water that is not sterilized.
 

rendul

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Feb 24, 2002
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Digestive Bacteria

For the past year I have been dealing with the same problem and recently my doctor started a course of treatment that comprises of Ciprofloxacin 500 mg and Metronidazole 500 mg (Trikacide). It has worked. As these bacterias are not readily familiar in Canada either, arriving at this particular treatment has been a lot of trial and error but this combination has worked and I am feeling a thousand times better. Mind you, with the Metronidazole you cannot drink any alcohol. The combination is sickening. Ask your doctor about these drugs as, I was informed by the pharmacist, they do not understand why it works together but it does!!! Good luck! :cry:
 

KateP

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May 28, 2004
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rendul said:
For the past year I have been dealing with the same problem and recently my doctor started a course of treatment that comprises of Ciprofloxacin 500 mg and Metronidazole 500 mg (Trikacide). It has worked. As these bacterias are not readily familiar in Canada either, arriving at this particular treatment has been a lot of trial and error but this combination has worked and I am feeling a thousand times better. Mind you, with the Metronidazole you cannot drink any alcohol. The combination is sickening. Ask your doctor about these drugs as, I was informed by the pharmacist, they do not understand why it works together but it does!!! Good luck! :cry:

I had 2 bouts of Ameba las year and the doctor prescribed Metronidazone too plus another pill to take away the cramps. It was horrible. I kept getting waves of pain shooting around my stomach and got totally dehydrated even though I was drinking a glass of water every 30 minutes. According to what my doctor told me, the most common way you can get it is from not washing your hands after going to the bathroom. Needless to say, my hands have been EXTREMELY clean since then...
 

Lambada

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rendul said:
For the past year I have been dealing with the same problem and recently my doctor started a course of treatment that comprises of Ciprofloxacin 500 mg and Metronidazole 500 mg (Trikacide). It has worked. As these bacterias are not readily familiar in Canada either, arriving at this particular treatment has been a lot of trial and error but this combination has worked and I am feeling a thousand times better. Mind you, with the Metronidazole you cannot drink any alcohol. The combination is sickening. Ask your doctor about these drugs as, I was informed by the pharmacist, they do not understand why it works together but it does!!! Good luck! :cry:

I absolutely agree with this, as I live in the DR, have had 2 bouts of this in the 12 years I've lived here. Have a stool sample examined to see whether you have the active parasite (trophozoite) or the dormant one (cyst) or both. It effects the amount & duration of medication. If you can take Cipro plus Metronidazole that is ideal. I personally can't take Cipro (it exacerabates IBS which I have) so I went on a course of Metrocep - liquid metronidazole plus hydroxi-quinolene. After a week I was much better...........and a week later it came back (confirmed by immediate coprology report) because clearly I had not been on the medication long enough, even though I had exceeded the length recommended by doctor and pharmaceutical instructions. So I then took the medicine for a month! That killed it.
You could have got this by eating food prepared by contaminated hands. It IS a debilitating illness & even if you don't feel like eating you must keep your electrolytes up, even if it is by drinking the 'baby' rehydration salts mixed with orange flavour. You will probably notice weight loss. There is more of this here in the DR than is generally known. The Haitian community seems to suffer noticeably. If people just think they have 'the runs' & don't treat properly, it remains in the system even if symptoms alleviate. But it is eminently treatable & a new slim you will emerge! Let us know how you get on! Good luck.
 

POP Bad Boy

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Jun 27, 2004
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I don't understand...........

.............why you go through all the trouble taking those medecines when the tinidazole works in one shot.

almost every doctor I know in POP tells people to use it. A friend of mine that got it in here and went home to the US had me send it to him cause his doctor IN CT told him to get it. (last year before it was approved in the US)

Many links on the drug also had this question:


"If Tinidazole's So Good, Why Isn't It Approved Here?
Apparently, drug company, Pfizer, doesn't believe the market (and potential profit) is big enough to justify the expense of going through the approval process in the US."

Tinidazole is approved in many countries. A large body of clinical data exists to support its use as a treatment for amebas, giardia and vaginal trichomona, just like Flagyl. So if you can't tolerate or just don't want to to take Flagyl, you might consider discussing tinidazole with your physician.


By the way, it's only about 19 peso's for a 500 mg tablet.

Also, as far as Zental, most doc's will tell people that live here to take 2 of those every 6 mos as a preventative measure, but if you do get it, to take the Tindazole.




Here's one Link:

http://www.mdbrowse.com/Druginf/T/tinidazole.htm
 

Rick Snyder

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Nov 19, 2003
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Metronidazol

In the first year here I had the two parasites mentioned and after 13 days I almost died because the local Dr prescribed a medicine that killed one of the parasites but did nothing for the second and more deadly one.(he was given a paper from the local labrotory saying that I had these two parasites). My wife then asked the local pharmasist what I should take and he directed that I should take Metrozol-Plus, 300 mg tablets and take 3 tablets a day for ten days. Three days later I was healed but took them for the total 10 days. Best thing for those DR parasites.(because of this above episode and other experiences I no longer have confidence in any DR educated doctor but a lot of faith in the pharmasists)
 

MrNiceGuy

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Sep 12, 2004
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Very good advice on this page

The doctor is number one. If you don't get the results you want go to another one and soon. In the mean time something else that my gf in DR gave me when I was complaining was the juice from a freshly squeezed lime or lemon mixed with a teaspoon of salt. Tastes horrible but just shoot it down. It made quite a difference for me.

Good Luck...
 

ricktoronto

Grande Pollo en Boca Chica
Jan 9, 2002
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To the Original Poster

You don't say where you live but you need to see a tropical disease specialist - there are usually larger hospitals with travel medicine specialists who will examine microscopically whatever fluids or solids (most likely) and make a diagnosis. This is often not the case with an ER or even a well trained doctor unless you happen upon one from say Thailand or India etc., which you tend not to.

You have received a lot of advice well meaning that could be right or wrong - for example it is well known that Tinidazole (Fasigsyn) works faster and with less of a dosage regime than Metronizadole (Flagyl) and I am happy to hear the FDA allows it because it will make a dent in the Flagyl makers profits ( 2 one gram doses vs. 6 weeks of Flagyl daily for Giardia for example), unless of course it was them making both drugs all along which would not surprise me.

But also recommended combos of Sulphur [sic] actually, Sulfa, drugs which a great many people are overly sensitive to ( espeically if you are ASA sensitive), Cipro plus Flagyl....etc.

For specific pathogens or parasites (amoebas, and giardia are not bacterias at all - they are unicellular parasites much larger and tend to muck up the liver as a home) you need specific treatments - see a specialist who has seen it before with a lab that can figure out what it is. A lot of these medicines actually make you feel quite sick and are tough on the liver and if they are not the right ones then you aren't getting better and feel worse at the same time. Plus in some cases specific tests, like LFT's are required to ensure they are not doing harm.

I am getting over a case of atypical Dengue caught in Nicaragua and even in a city of 3 million people there weren't many (any) doctors who have heard of it let alone seen it but the one guy at Toronto General in the travel medicine department.
 

234_girl

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Sep 20, 2004
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Thanks for so many replies

Thank you all for so many replies. I have seen my doctor again a couple of days ago and she really had no idea how to help me. We are still waiting for results from the infectologist - after more than a week they still hadn't come up with any results whatsoever. I have no apetite (but force myself to eat), I'm always thirsty but what good do litres of liquid do when they basically just run right through me. And I can't stand the abdominal pain after every meal. I'm going back to my doctor on Monday, she promised she'll order special tests for Giardia as obviously it hasn't been done so far.
 

234_girl

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Sep 20, 2004
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Me again

I still haven't been diagnosed with anything as they obviously lost my samples. My white blood cell count is slightly higher than it should be, but I can't remember the exact value. Hemoglobin dropped terribly (to four point something) and CRP is still way too high. My doctor have me an antibiotic today. We were trying to find a tinidazole but finally found something from the same family of antibiotics which should work just as good. The treatment will last 5 days. She too believes it is Giardia. We can't wait any longer for the results, she said, as I show all the symptoms of Giardia.
 

ricktoronto

Grande Pollo en Boca Chica
Jan 9, 2002
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234_girl said:
I still haven't been diagnosed with anything as they obviously lost my samples. My white blood cell count is slightly higher than it should be, but I can't remember the exact value. Hemoglobin dropped terribly (to four point something) and CRP is still way too high. My doctor have me an antibiotic today. We were trying to find a tinidazole but finally found something from the same family of antibiotics which should work just as good. The treatment will last 5 days. She too believes it is Giardia. We can't wait any longer for the results, she said, as I show all the symptoms of Giardia.

Note that both metronidazole (Flagyl) and Tinidazole ( Fagisyn) are anti-parasitic agents not antibiotics - giardia and its ilk are not bacteria they are like the littel protozoas you looked at under the microscope in elementary school science. You should see if you can get Tinidazole as it is much faster and more well tolerated than the long sickening course of Flagyl for giardia. You can buy it OTC in the DR ( I have a few tabs myself), maybe someone is coming back and can bring some.

If the FDA allows it then it can at least be imported. I think in Boca Chica it cost less than 40 cents per 1 gram pill.

Here's a GOOD link on Giardiasis :http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic868.htm

And watch the interactions with other drugs, and consuming ANY alcohol makes it a horrible treatment to take (it acts like antabuse).
 

tuss

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Apr 11, 2004
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As a doctor i must make a few points related to the above discussion

1. Don't take medical advise from people on the internet. The health care professionals who have actually examined you and have access to all your test results are best able to assist you.

2. Metronidazole (Flagyl) is an antibiotic that has been around a long time, is very cheap (pennies/tablet), safe (very few allergies) but has a few side effects (metal taste in mouth, antabuse like reaction with alcohol). It is very effective against parasites as well as anaerobic bacteria.

3. Any number of different things could account for the symptoms you describe and once again, your own physician and consulting specialists are the best ones to answer your questions and give you medical advise.

I hope you are feeling better soon.
 
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