I think Becki's idea of checking your PA's susceptibility is a good idea. On a side note, one study I read noted that stenotrophomonas might confer resistance to PA, and that makes me wonder about all the nuances of these bacterial interactions. Maybe MRSA is bolstering your PA.
Seeing an infectious disease specialist might be a good idea. But I like discussion too.
When I cultured stenotrophomonas a month ago, along with strep, which I believe is what actually made me feel sick, I did a lot of reading. I wanted to know why/how with my relatively low antibiotic use and numerically not-advanced lung disease could I be culturing a bacteria associated with more advanced disease.
When I was last hospitalized, I had some of the antibiotics listed as encouraging steno. I'll ask if I can have other ones next time, but I don't know what different bacteria different abs will encourage...so I'm kinda torn/passive on this.
Here is some reading on "selective pressure from antibiotics.".
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/558719_5
Emerging and Unusual Gram-Negative Infections in Cystic Fibrosis
Links to various bacteria on the right.
http://www.cfmedicine.com/htmldocs/CFText/stenotrophomonas.htm
With the widespread use of antibiotics and dramatic improvement in patients survival, newer organisms, such as Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (Denton et al, 1996; Denton et al, 1998; Talmaciu et al, 2000; Krzewinski et al, 2001), Achromobacter xylosoxidans (Dunne & Maisch, 1995; Krzewinski et al, 2001; Tan et al, 2002) and nontuberculous mycobacteria (Tomashefski et al, 1996; Torrens et al, 1998; Olivier et al, 2003) are becoming more widespread. The reasons for their emergence are complex but may relate to the selective pressure exerted by repeated exposure to antibiotic therapy, improved laboratory isolation techniques and enhanced reporting.
