Zithromycin Mon wed and fri

[shellbell]

I was on it for years and did like the effect - less flare ups. But once i tested positive for Abcessus, they had me go off of it because it is part of the treatment for treating abcessus-should I eventually need to treat it. Anyone else told that too?

 

[Tisha]

I started it around 2006. My PFTs raised a bit and got to a peak in 2009 (which had happened before in my life, without azythromicin anyway) and then started dropping. I quit it a few months ago and haven't noticed much difference. I don't think it was doing anything at all to me. It does help if I take 5 days in a row to kind of "stop" a budding process, thought.
They gave it to me mainly as an anti-inflammatory, supposedly.

 

[carly23]

I really think its not doin anything..im
Always culturing the mrsa and pseudo bugs..i havent noticed any change an to be honest since i been on it my fev has declined im wandering if its hurting me? I was 37% 2 yrs ago <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif" border="0"> im now 29%

 

[kross10911]

Im glad Im not the only one who is not convinced of this zithro treatment. I never thought the use of this med three times a week indefinetly was a good idea. It actually used to help me treat more mild symptoms early on if I used it as a Zpack.

I stopped taking it in Jan when I found out I was pregnant. No amount of convincing was going to happen to keep me on it since I never saw any improvments. Just because its "safe" to use as a Zpak while pregnant wasnt enough for me to take it the entire time. I doubt there has been studies on indefinite use during pregnancy.

I dont plan on going back on it anytime soon. Maybe if I get worse years down the road and they want to see if it helps I will reconsider. But as of right now there isnt enough evidence to keep it up.

 

[robert321]

To determine that something is safe to take during pregnancy includes determining if it can contaminate your baby's blood. If it is not capable of crossing that barrier, it will not change based on amount of its use. While you're probably right about a lack of study on off label use, I don't see that one is necessary. If it doesn't contaminate the blood in a week, it won't contaminate the blood in 36 weeks. I'm no doctor and obviously have never been pregnant but this is to the best of my medical knowledge.
Zithro is prescribed off label as an anti inflammatory drug in place of ibuprophen because it doesn't have the same effect on the liver and it has the added benefits of its bacteria fighting attributes. I do not know if resistance can be built against zithro but since it isn't used as an antibiotic and is not commonly used as one in the treatment of cf, it should not matter. But you would be happy to know you are at a greatly reduced risk of contracting gonorrhea while on zithro. The preferred treatment of which is a one time shot of 1000 mg of zithro or a stout dose of amoxicillian. (No, I don't know that from first hand experience but it is a funny story how I learned that)

 

[Juniper]

I recently stopped taking it under my doctors advice as i've been having feelings of my heart skipping a beat then speeding up.
Its all very uncomfortable and happens practically every night while i'm resting.
I hoped stopping the Zithromax would stop the symptoms but they have just carried on. I'm now sick of the feeling i keep getting and don't know whats causing it. Just wondered has anyone else experienced this or has any ideas what it could be?<img title="Frown" src="include/wysiwyg/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-frown.gif" alt="Frown" border="0" />

 

[CyrilCrodius]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><em>Originally posted by: <strong>Incomudrox</strong></em> Azithromycin is not used to increase FEV1. Azithromycin, even though it is an antibiotic is not used as an antibiotic in Cystic Fibrosis patients. Azithromycin is used in CF patients because it inhibits the genetics of Pseudomonas that allow the bacteria to talk to each-other. This is known as Quorum sensing. Another example is bugs such as ants also use this to talk. Azithromycin prevents this in the bacteria known and Pseudomonas which you probably have. So in closing, if the bacteria can not talk to each other they do not reproduce as much because they don't know how big their populations is because they can not talk. Azithromycin can cause INCREASED heart rate. I stopped taking it and my heart rate dropped 20-30BPM.</end quote>
What my doc told me if I remember correctly is that it destroys the envelope of the pseudomonas or makes is permeable to tobramycin. So it is effective when taken with another antibiotic.Googling...<a href="http://aac.asm.org/content/49/4/1377.full">http://aac.asm.org/content/49/4/1377.full</a>"<em>A 1-N-phenylnaphthylamine assay showed that azithromycin interacted with the outer membrane of P. aeruginosa PAO1 and increased its permeability while Mg²⁺ and Ca²⁺ antagonized this action. Our results indicate that azithromycin directly interacts with the outer membrane of P. aeruginosa PAO1 by displacement of divalent cations from their binding sites on LPS. This action explains, at least in part, the effectiveness of sub-MICs of macrolide antibiotics in pseudomonal chronic airway infection.</em>"
I think that's pretty much what my doc told me.So Azithromycin will only make pseudomonas more sensitive to other antibiotics. You would likely not gain anything from taking it alone.

 

[TonyaH]

Andrew was on MWF Azithromycin for years until he began to culture Mycobacterium Abcessus. Studies have shown a correlation between maintenance azithromycin use and predisposition to m. abcessus. That, along with a previous poster's point that some treatment plans for m abcessus call for the use of azithromycin, he stopped taking it as a maintenance med immediately.
However, when he was on it the purpose was to control inflammation in the lungs.