Will zithromax protect me?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This last six weeks have been rough for my family. It has seemed to have a never ending stream of colds infecting us over the last six weeks (3 different viruses by my guess). We did see doctors for two of the three, and it was confirmed to be viral. To top it all off I got really ill on Thursday night. Raging fever, 104 degrees, suddenly in the middle of the night and advil did nothing to control it. I went to the doctor the next morning and they found I had pneumonia (which was weird, I felt fine the previous 3 days). Anyway I am taking zithromax and leviquin and it seems to be responding pretty well. Then yesterday, my wife starts to feel sick with a “soft pallet infection.” Turns out she has strep. :rolleyes: so, she now on a different antibiotic and we are staying away from each other. We are staying away from the kids too, but they seem to be sailing through all this just fine.

Now my question. Since I have been on these “nuke them from orbit” antibiotics for 3 days now, am I protected from the strep?

2

Yes, “Zithromax” is azithromycin (a macrolide) which is an appropriate antibiotic choice for Strept throat (streptococcal pharyngitis) and thus, presumably, will protect against its acquisition.

3

Thanks Doc. I feel, rightly or wrongly, that I am incredibly immunocompromised right now and have no desire to get even sicker. This pneumonia is awful!

4

If your kids are young or predisposed to ear infections or the like, I’d call up the family doctor/pediatrician and see about getting them on prophylactic antibiotics to avoid strep.

“Strep in family” is considered a valid reason to prescribe antibiotics.

Stock up on the hand sanitizer, too.

(Note to self: decline any dinner invitations to the Butts house)

[That doesn’t sound right!]
~VOW

5

It may be worth getting everyone’s vitamin d levels tested. There is evidence that vitamin D is essential to a variety of functions. This includes immune function as it is a co-factor of the cathelicidins.

Here is one quote from an excellent article that I would recommend reading.

edit: while anecdotal, I can say that in the 2 years I have been taking D3 supplements (must be d3), I have not had a single cold or case of the flu and this is coming from someone who used to get the flu and bronchitis at least once per year.

6

Medical advice is best handled in IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

7

IANAD !!!

Zithromax may protect you from pneumonia, strep, and plenty more.

But what will protect you from Levaquin (Levofloxacin)?

The fluoroquinolone drugs, of which levofloxacin is one, are a class of industrial-strength and profoundly dangerous antibiotics. Adverse effects can include long-term tendon damage and permanent peripheral and CNS nerve damage.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on levofloxacin:

[QUOTE=Wikipedia article: Levofloxacin]
The serious adverse effects that may occur as a result of levofloxacin therapy include irreversible peripheral neuropathy,[52][62] spontaneous tendon rupture and tendonitis,[8][9][63][64][65] QTc prolongation/torsades de pointes,[8] toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN)[8] and Stevens-Johnson syndrome, erythema multiforme,[66] severe central nervous system disorders (CNS), including seizures[67][68] and clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD: Pseudomembranous colitis)[69][70][71][72] photosensitivity/phototoxicity reactions,[66][73] fatal hypoglycemia,[74] kidney damage,[75] rhabdomyolysis (muscle wasting),[56][57][58] as well as anaphylactoid reactions[76][77] and myasthenia crisis.[78]

Additional serious adverse reactions include acute pancreatitis,[79][80] temporary as well as permanent loss of vision, irreversible double vision,[81] impaired color vision, exanthema, abdominal pain, malaise, drug fever,[82] dysaesthesia and eosinophilia. Pseudotumor cerebri, commonly known as idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH), (also referred to as increased intracranial pressure),[83] has been reported to occur as a serious adverse reaction to levofloxacin. Another serious adverse effect is autoimmune hemolytic anemia.[84]
[/quote]

Stephen Fried, an investigative journalist, wrote a book about this after his wife suffered permanent brain damage after a single dose. (The medication he mentions is Floxin, which I think is ofloxacin, the racemic version of levofloxacin.) See his web site for this book and in particular the full first chapter of the book, on-line. You should definitely want to read this before taking any drug in this class.

(The implication would be, if you’re going to have problems like this, you’d know it by now – in which case, you definitely DON’T want to read this!)

I suspect (but can’t prove) that this also happened to my father about a year-and-a-half before he passed away, when he was hospitalized and given intravenous ciprofloxacin (I suspect) for septicemia. He became seriously demented rather quickly during that hospital stay, from which he never recovered. I don’t have access to his medical records to find out any more detail than that. (Of course, I have no idea what other recourse the doctors might have had, when a patient has septicemia.)

8

To add to that, cipro once gave me a super-sensitive sense of smell. Like, to the point where I could smell specific thing that were a block away. I could smell the insides of houses as I walked past.

Very disturbing, and scares the hell out of me.

9

On the other hand, when I had severe otitis externa that was both A.) extremely painful and B.) threatening to spread into other areas (such as my salivary gland), it was Cipro that finally knocked that shit out. This was after amoxicillin and azithromycin had failed. So, yeah, it is strong, but it was necessary in that case. No side effects either, unless you count (spoilered for TMI).

My very first and only ever yeast infection. Probably caused because, between the three antibiotics, I probably killed every bacteria in the tri-county area.