Interesting. Piperacillin used to give me a very mild allergic reaction that would build up during the course of the treatment. It would be mild enough that I wouldn't notice it, but I would notice that I felt worse (be more easily out of breath) after the IV course than before! And it WOULD take me a while to get back to normal!
One time I had a rather strong reaction, but we blamed the wrong antibiotic (IV Cipro). That time, I had moderate bronchospasm, my eyes became hypersensitive to light and I had to live in the dark for 5 days. I couldn't bear any light for the first 2 days. It took me a long while to go back to normal from this one, since we had stopped the WRONG antibiotic!
Then on another treatment with Piperacilin and Tobramycin. I had a full allergic reaction on my first dose. I knew that I didn't have any problem with Tobramycin, so I knew that Piperacilin was the culprit. My whole body was aching, my lungs were aching from moderately-severe bronchospasm, my eyes were red, my lips, tongue and saliva ducts were inflamed and puffy/swollen, so I stopped it completely. God, I was at home and didn't have an Epipen at the time. Imagine how dangerous that was!
Ceftazidime has given me side effects or allergic reactions on and off. Last time I received it was an "on" time.
The first time it happened, my palms and the sole of my feet broke out in a rash. My skin became super sensitive (normal scratching would abnormally hurt). My eyes became so sensitive to light that I couldn't bear any kind of light for a day and a half. I've been able to receive many Cefta treatments after that without having a reaction. Then out of the blue, I reacted again, though the reaction was milder. Then I was able to receive Cefta many times again without reacting to it. Then the last time, I reacted. Except that a new thing happened : My tongue and the saliva ducts under my tongue became inflamed and slightly swollen - that's something that also happened when I had an allergic reaction to Piperacillin. I *think* I also started having trouble breathing from the reaction, too. Though it was hard to say, since I was healing from flu at that time. Anyway. It looked too much like I was having a reaction similar to the ones I had with Piperacillin before and I knew that if it was the case, I would regret doing the full 14 days course because I would feel like shit for at least 2 weeks because of it. So in spite of my pneumologist strongly disagreeing with my choice (because of the increased risks of developing resistance and of infection flaring up earlier when not taking a full 14 days of IVs), I stopped after 7 days (I could feel that there was nothing left to clear up). I wasn't completely back to normal when I came out of hospital, but I quickly got better in the first 3-5 days. So I would say that my call was good and that what was preventing me from going better was the antibiotic itself.
I'm hypothesizing that the reaction affects all exocrine glands, which the lungs are unfortunately part off.
This sounds very similar to what happened to me.
I've taken tobramycin for years but now suddenly, my kidneys don't like it any more and it keeps making me feel nauseous.
Turns out I had elevated levels in my blood that remained above the "acceptable trough level" of 1.0.
So make sure its not tobramycin toxicity.
Thats interesting what you said about the tobramycin will bear that in mind next time as i usually seem to have the same IVS .
Just wondered if it takes you all a while to get back to normal too i finished Tuesday and still feel bit sick and headachey. I suppose they take a while to get out of our systems i'm 40 now too so find it gets worse as i get older LOL!!
Normally, they should be doing a renal dosing (blood draw before and 1 hour after giving you Tobramycin) and adjust your dose every time you start a treatment. If they're not doing it, then they're doing something wrong.
