What it was...
What I had... A kidney infection called pyelonephritis.
What happened with me....Severely ill patients with kidney infections may be hospitalized until they can take fluids and needed drugs on their own. Kidney infections generally require several weeks of antibiotic treatment. Researchers at the University of Washington found that 2-week therapy with TMP/SMZ was as effective as 6 weeks of treatment with the same drug in women with kidney infections that did not involve an obstruction or nervous system disorder. In such cases, kidney infections rarely lead to kidney damage or kidney failure unless they go untreated.
The Bacteria involved....The type of antibiotic that your doctor prescribes for a UTI depends on your history and your urine test that identifies the strain and type of bacteria. Even though E. coli bacteria might be responsible for a woman having several UTIs in a row, there may be slight differences in the bacteria.
Often a UTI can be cured with one or two days of treatment. For infections of the bladder (called cystitis) the usual antibiotic treatment is for three days. Infections of the kidneys (called pyelonephritis) require a longer course of treatment, usually 10-14 days. Although antibiotics can be highly effective, as more doctors and patients are coming to understand, bacteria also can be quite good at resisting antibiotics.
In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis learned the reason bladder infections are so tough to beat is that the E. coli can dodge antibiotics by invading the immune system cells that line the wall of the bladder.
"The bacteria have become smarter, and we're seeing more antibiotic resistance," says David Talan, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine and chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine and faculty of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Talan is one of the authors of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed that E. coli bacteria have become resistant to a standard antibiotic, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) for treating UTIs.
The study, which was funded by Bayer, involved 255 women with an average age 25 who had acute uncomplicated pyelonephritis, a serious type of kidney infection. Researchers found nearly 18 percent of strains of E. coli were resistant to TMP/SMX, yet none was resistant to ciprofloxacin, which falls into a new class of drugs called quinolones. Bayer manufactures ciprofloxacin (Cipro®).
Long story short. If I'd continued on the meds prescribed by Guelph General Hospital on Thursday last week, who called me today and said they were the wrong meds, I could have died. That's been a very sobering thought. It's making me look around at lots of things and wonder. Change is coming.
What happened with me....Severely ill patients with kidney infections may be hospitalized until they can take fluids and needed drugs on their own. Kidney infections generally require several weeks of antibiotic treatment. Researchers at the University of Washington found that 2-week therapy with TMP/SMZ was as effective as 6 weeks of treatment with the same drug in women with kidney infections that did not involve an obstruction or nervous system disorder. In such cases, kidney infections rarely lead to kidney damage or kidney failure unless they go untreated.
The Bacteria involved....The type of antibiotic that your doctor prescribes for a UTI depends on your history and your urine test that identifies the strain and type of bacteria. Even though E. coli bacteria might be responsible for a woman having several UTIs in a row, there may be slight differences in the bacteria.
Often a UTI can be cured with one or two days of treatment. For infections of the bladder (called cystitis) the usual antibiotic treatment is for three days. Infections of the kidneys (called pyelonephritis) require a longer course of treatment, usually 10-14 days. Although antibiotics can be highly effective, as more doctors and patients are coming to understand, bacteria also can be quite good at resisting antibiotics.
In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis learned the reason bladder infections are so tough to beat is that the E. coli can dodge antibiotics by invading the immune system cells that line the wall of the bladder.
"The bacteria have become smarter, and we're seeing more antibiotic resistance," says David Talan, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine and chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine and faculty of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Talan is one of the authors of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed that E. coli bacteria have become resistant to a standard antibiotic, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) for treating UTIs.
The study, which was funded by Bayer, involved 255 women with an average age 25 who had acute uncomplicated pyelonephritis, a serious type of kidney infection. Researchers found nearly 18 percent of strains of E. coli were resistant to TMP/SMX, yet none was resistant to ciprofloxacin, which falls into a new class of drugs called quinolones. Bayer manufactures ciprofloxacin (Cipro®).
Long story short. If I'd continued on the meds prescribed by Guelph General Hospital on Thursday last week, who called me today and said they were the wrong meds, I could have died. That's been a very sobering thought. It's making me look around at lots of things and wonder. Change is coming.