alcaligenes

L

Lief

New member
My health has been pretty good.
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<br />I've cultured AX since the end of 2001 and it was never a huge problem. The only time I seemed to get sick was when I had other infections (StaphA, pneumonia, etc.) I wouldn't attribute my AX as the main reason of any sicknesses I had. In fact, I had sinus surgery in 2003 and was hospital free for about 6 years.
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<br />I was hospitalized in 2009 because, for whatever reason, (luck I guess) I was hit with several infections all at once. My AX grew resistances to the antibiotics I was on, my Staph A. started to rapidly grow, and I also ended up with pneumonia.
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<br />All of those at once was something my body couldn't handle so I was pretty sick. (They thought I had swine-flu initially I was doing so badly. PFT's dropped 20~%.) I did make a recovery, however. Although, ever since then, my PFTs have hovered in the mid 70's/high 60s.(It used to be around 90-80%). Although again, I wouldn't consider my AX the main cause of my PFT drop.
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<br />I've been pretty healthy since, with the exception of these past few weeks (I'm back to baseline now after the Augmentin).
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<br />I've cultured multiple strands of AX (some at the same time) ever since 2001. It has never been eradicated and my doctor told me that most likely I'll have remnants of it for the rest of my life.
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<br />I don't want to sound discouraging or anything.. but as we have said.. its a pretty stubborn bug. lol
 
M

MMBinNC

New member
Yea, this is the primary bacteria I culture and it's a b*tch. We used to use Augmentin, now resistant, then Septra (Bactrim), allergic and resistant, Timentin (now resistant), Zosyn (resistant), Imipenem and Meropenem (what I'm on currently, used to Imipenem but it gave me bad side-effects, so we're trying Meropenem). For the longest time I had no problems, got sick, Timentin, 3 weeks later, all better. Last summer though I switched to Zosyn (both Timentin and Zosyn are supposedly susceptible according to my cultures, but they apparently aren't strong enough anymore), and experienced a sharp decline, because, lucky for me, it also coincided with a rapid growth of my OSSA and anaeroebic bacteria (can't culture anaerobes, but we think they are there). Long story short after a month in the hospital with Levaquin, Vancomycin, and Imipenem my baseline dropped about 20%, but now is stabilized.
 
M

MMBinNC

New member
Yea, this is the primary bacteria I culture and it's a b*tch. We used to use Augmentin, now resistant, then Septra (Bactrim), allergic and resistant, Timentin (now resistant), Zosyn (resistant), Imipenem and Meropenem (what I'm on currently, used to Imipenem but it gave me bad side-effects, so we're trying Meropenem). For the longest time I had no problems, got sick, Timentin, 3 weeks later, all better. Last summer though I switched to Zosyn (both Timentin and Zosyn are supposedly susceptible according to my cultures, but they apparently aren't strong enough anymore), and experienced a sharp decline, because, lucky for me, it also coincided with a rapid growth of my OSSA and anaeroebic bacteria (can't culture anaerobes, but we think they are there). Long story short after a month in the hospital with Levaquin, Vancomycin, and Imipenem my baseline dropped about 20%, but now is stabilized.
 
M

MMBinNC

New member
Yea, this is the primary bacteria I culture and it's a b*tch. We used to use Augmentin, now resistant, then Septra (Bactrim), allergic and resistant, Timentin (now resistant), Zosyn (resistant), Imipenem and Meropenem (what I'm on currently, used to Imipenem but it gave me bad side-effects, so we're trying Meropenem). For the longest time I had no problems, got sick, Timentin, 3 weeks later, all better. Last summer though I switched to Zosyn (both Timentin and Zosyn are supposedly susceptible according to my cultures, but they apparently aren't strong enough anymore), and experienced a sharp decline, because, lucky for me, it also coincided with a rapid growth of my OSSA and anaeroebic bacteria (can't culture anaerobes, but we think they are there). Long story short after a month in the hospital with Levaquin, Vancomycin, and Imipenem my baseline dropped about 20%, but now is stabilized.
 
A

angelrn00

New member
oh man! a 20% drop??? what is your pft now? i think that is what brian is having the hardest time with. even though his baseline 37-40 was low, he had gotten there so slowly and been there so long that he was fine there. so a 10% drop in a month has been a huge adjustment for him. luckily he came up to 36% on a f/u pft thurs. they had him on high dose oral bactrim, but apparently he's allergic. he was also on cipro and imepinum. apprently didn't work. and coliston 12 days...not too good either. i am a nurse and i talked to one of our infectious disease guys yest and he said tygacilin usually works well and bactrim. he said that people can be desensitized to bactrim so that they can tolerate it. so we may ask about that!
 
A

angelrn00

New member
oh man! a 20% drop??? what is your pft now? i think that is what brian is having the hardest time with. even though his baseline 37-40 was low, he had gotten there so slowly and been there so long that he was fine there. so a 10% drop in a month has been a huge adjustment for him. luckily he came up to 36% on a f/u pft thurs. they had him on high dose oral bactrim, but apparently he's allergic. he was also on cipro and imepinum. apprently didn't work. and coliston 12 days...not too good either. i am a nurse and i talked to one of our infectious disease guys yest and he said tygacilin usually works well and bactrim. he said that people can be desensitized to bactrim so that they can tolerate it. so we may ask about that!
 
A

angelrn00

New member
oh man! a 20% drop??? what is your pft now? i think that is what brian is having the hardest time with. even though his baseline 37-40 was low, he had gotten there so slowly and been there so long that he was fine there. so a 10% drop in a month has been a huge adjustment for him. luckily he came up to 36% on a f/u pft thurs. they had him on high dose oral bactrim, but apparently he's allergic. he was also on cipro and imepinum. apprently didn't work. and coliston 12 days...not too good either. i am a nurse and i talked to one of our infectious disease guys yest and he said tygacilin usually works well and bactrim. he said that people can be desensitized to bactrim so that they can tolerate it. so we may ask about that!
 
M

MMBinNC

New member
Hey my baseline is in the low 50s now, I doubt this is typical since it seems a lot of people don't have a lot of problems with it. My doctor actually said a lot of people in their early 20s seem to have problems with the Achromobacter.

I forgot to write it, but I was on Tygacil for a while, but it was ambiguous what benefit it was having. Doing all my IVs in the dorm, the Tygacil made it more difficult (since it has a short half-life and is given in Medi-Bags that you mix). I tried Colistin as well, I don't think its even prescribed normally for gram-negative bacteria.

I would ask your doctor to at least tell you the sensitivities. Every strain is different and over time can develop resistances. Many strains are susceptible to Azlocillin, Septra, Timentin, Zosyn, Fosfomycin, Levaquin, Imipenem, Meropenem, Ceftazadime, and Amikacin to name a few. Mine like I said is only susceptible to the carbapenems and stuff I'm allergic to.

I wouldn't stress too much about it. I think my occurrence is an outlier, it seems like most people with Achromobacter just feel tired and have exacerbations in line or even less than Pseudomonas.
 
M

MMBinNC

New member
Hey my baseline is in the low 50s now, I doubt this is typical since it seems a lot of people don't have a lot of problems with it. My doctor actually said a lot of people in their early 20s seem to have problems with the Achromobacter.

I forgot to write it, but I was on Tygacil for a while, but it was ambiguous what benefit it was having. Doing all my IVs in the dorm, the Tygacil made it more difficult (since it has a short half-life and is given in Medi-Bags that you mix). I tried Colistin as well, I don't think its even prescribed normally for gram-negative bacteria.

I would ask your doctor to at least tell you the sensitivities. Every strain is different and over time can develop resistances. Many strains are susceptible to Azlocillin, Septra, Timentin, Zosyn, Fosfomycin, Levaquin, Imipenem, Meropenem, Ceftazadime, and Amikacin to name a few. Mine like I said is only susceptible to the carbapenems and stuff I'm allergic to.

I wouldn't stress too much about it. I think my occurrence is an outlier, it seems like most people with Achromobacter just feel tired and have exacerbations in line or even less than Pseudomonas.
 
M

MMBinNC

New member
Hey my baseline is in the low 50s now, I doubt this is typical since it seems a lot of people don't have a lot of problems with it. My doctor actually said a lot of people in their early 20s seem to have problems with the Achromobacter.
<br />
<br />I forgot to write it, but I was on Tygacil for a while, but it was ambiguous what benefit it was having. Doing all my IVs in the dorm, the Tygacil made it more difficult (since it has a short half-life and is given in Medi-Bags that you mix). I tried Colistin as well, I don't think its even prescribed normally for gram-negative bacteria.
<br />
<br />I would ask your doctor to at least tell you the sensitivities. Every strain is different and over time can develop resistances. Many strains are susceptible to Azlocillin, Septra, Timentin, Zosyn, Fosfomycin, Levaquin, Imipenem, Meropenem, Ceftazadime, and Amikacin to name a few. Mine like I said is only susceptible to the carbapenems and stuff I'm allergic to.
<br />
<br />I wouldn't stress too much about it. I think my occurrence is an outlier, it seems like most people with Achromobacter just feel tired and have exacerbations in line or even less than Pseudomonas.
 
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