Antibiotic + YI

[insert-emo-sn.livejournal.com]

Hey ladies.... I'm in a bit of a pickle, hopefully y'all can help me.

Last week, I was pretty much on my death bed. Tonsils the size of golf balls, swollen so big that I could barely breathe, white spots all over them, sore/stiff/swollen neck, head and body aches, fever of 101.5+ for 5 days straight. After being misdiagnosed by my GP (which, unfortunately, is still my pediatrician - I'm barely 19. Yes I need a new GP lol) TWICE, I spent Wednesday at the hospital getting bloodwork done (happy birthday to me D:). After all the tests came back negative and all logical possibilities were therefore exhausted, everyone was stumped. My mother, an advanced practice nurse, pretty much threatened my doctor to give me SOMETHING to ease my suffering, so after much arguing, he finally prescribed me a 10-day cycle of Augmentin, 875mg twice a day.

I started taking that on Thursday afternoon, and by Friday night I was feeling ALMOST 100% better. Saturday morning, however, I noticed a yeastie beastie-a-brewin' down there, which I was not at all thrilled about, especially considering that I still had 8 days left of the antibiotic. By Monday morning I felt 100% better, so I stopped taking the Augmentin - I took 4 full days of the antibiotic. I had intended to get a Monistat to treat my yeastie but didn't have access to a car until yesterday, at which point since I had been eating massive amounts of yogurt all week, it had started to get better.

This morning, however, I woke up with the YI symptoms back in bloom... but also, I feel like I'm getting sick again. I can't tell if it's the same thing I had last week, or just a cold. But still. Not good.

(short story: Last week I got sick. After much deliberation, I finally got antibiotics. While on/because of the antibiotics, I developed a YI and because I felt better, I stopped taking the antibiotic after the 4th day of 10; YI symptoms consequently ceased. This morning I woke up and both sick AND YI symptoms are back.)

So my question is this: If I start taking the antibiotic again (which I fully intend to do regardless, because I am NOT going to be immobilized by sickness for another week), how can I deal with the YI?? Should I deal with the symptoms until I'm done taking the Augmentin, or would an OTC treatment still be effective, despite the antibiotic?

Thanks in advance, ladies (....and gents?) :)

[Edit for clarification: I'm not really looking for anyone to try to diagnose what I might have had last week; I had 3 doctors stumped, so I'm not expecting anyone here to have a clue.... it's gone, for the most part, and that's all I'm worried about :P)

Comments

[archangelbeth]

I'd suggest eating a lot of yogurt with the good kind of live cultures, and low-on-sugar -- which should help, at a minimum, with the other things antibiotics can do. If you start to feel better again, though -- indicating that it's not a cold -- definitely finish the course of the antibiotics so that you don't breed an antibiotic-resistant strain of the things to make you miserable.

I don't know enough about YI to know whether an OTC would be useful, or interact... Well, if one's topical and the other is oral, that's less likely to interact badly. Call the doctor again?

Or, stupid question on my part, would your mom have any ideas?

(What a birthday, indeed! I spent a Christmas Day in the emergency room once, with sinusitis (hi, really high fever that doesn't go away, plus excruciating headache, for... 3 days? 4?), and I sympathize.)

Good luck!

[insert-emo-sn.livejournal.com]

I was eating the yogurt to help not with my mystery illness, but with the YI symptoms, as everybody says that the live cultures/bacteria/etc help restore the good bacteria all up in the vag... I should have finished the antibiotic in the first place, that was dumb of me lol. And I'm not sure about the topical vs oral thing, because the YI was a direct result of the antibiotic in the first place. D: I don't want to call my doctor, because after last week's fiasco... haha, my parents are not happy, and they are not taking me there ever again. :) And as for my mother.... we just don't have the kind of happy mother/daughter relationship where we can talk about stuff like that...... Thanks for the tips though :)

And ew. Merry Christmas. D: I definitely sympathize with excruciating headaches... I have chronic migraines, they can last for weeks. D: Party. Haha.

[archangelbeth]

*nods enthusiastically* What I meant about the other things antibiotics can do... They can kill off the "good" intestinal stuff and make for "the runs." Eating yogurt, I was always told, replaces the good intestinal fauna so that you don't have squirts on the toilet from that end of things. (Not that it'd necessarily do anything against the Mystery Illness.)

Luck!

[jennifer0246.livejournal.com]

Being that your mom's a nurse, I hope she gave you an extreme talking-to about stopping antibiotics after only having taken half of the prescribed course -- that's how superbugs, which are drug-resistant, are created. I recognize that you can't go back in time and fix it now, but please don't ever do that again - it's bad for your health, and for the health of everyone.

On the topic of YIs, perhaps you will find the hints and tips contained in our wiki article helpful (http://www.vaginapagina.com/index.php?title=Yeast_Infection).

[lozoodle.livejournal.com]

Not sure about the YI but you should always finish your antibiotics even if you are feeling better - because even though you feel ok the bug might still be in your system and will come back if you stop taking them early.

[insert-emo-sn.livejournal.com]

Yeh, so I've learned, and which is what I'm fearing has happened D:

[kkgal42.livejournal.com]

[kkgal42.livejournal.com]

[kkgal42.livejournal.com]

[kkgal42.livejournal.com]

Ok, one more time. Hopefully it will work now :).

I would maybe try some acidophilus capsules inserted into the vagina. Definitely don't wait until you're done with the antibiotics, because more than likely the YI will be much harder to treat by then. So yeah, I would say buy a bottle of acidophilus, insert a capsule or two a day (probably at bedtime, so they stay up there as long as possible), and if you're still having issues once the antibiotics are done, then buy an OTC remedy. I don't think something like Monistat would interact with the Augmentin, but Monistat's expensive and from what I understand can become less effective if you use to too much, so it would suck to have to do it twice. Good luck! YI's are the pits.

[5ampunkrock.livejournal.com]

[5ampunkrock.livejournal.com]

*ahem* apparently LJ is broken. Here's what I said, hopefully it works:

Agreed with above. I had tonsillitis in December, I didn't finish my pills... by January it had come back with a vengeance, developed a peritonsillar abscess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peritonsillar_abscess) which had to be pierced and drained, I couldn't eat for a week, and could only BARELY open my mouth for at least 3 weeks. I was in emergency rooms twice. And the infection kept coming back; I was on antibiotics pretty much from January until April because as soon as I finished a course it came back. I had my tonsils removed on May 15th. They were both abscessed again.

Moral of the story: TAKE ALL OF YOUR ANTIBIOTICS!!!!11 Take a probiotic pill to prevent YIs but seriously, creating an antibiotic-resistant infection is far worse than treating a yeast infection.

[in-a-safety-net.livejournal.com]

It's good to hear I'm not the only young adult who still sees a pediatrician. (I'm 22, and am seriously gonna switch to a regular GP soon).