However, my terrible knee, jaw, and shoulder pain have not come back while on bicillin. I have never tried IV, and while the shots are not my favorite event of the week, it could be alot worse, and as my husband got more confident about giving them to me, they hurt less. Now they are no big deal.

Best of luck to you!

By coincidence (maybe) I also developed sciatica in both legs about a month after starting the injections. I assumed it was a separate issue and it probably is.

But, after having the flu at the beginning of March I got worse in a big way and pretty much back to square one. This is after having seen a noticeable improvement in Nov/Dec, just before adding the Bicillin in to the mix - I was on Biaxin already.

So, it is very hard to unpick what went on there but my LLMD surprised me when I saw him and he told me to stop the Bicillin becuase it might have been causing or adding to the sciatica (although we both kind of doubt it) but also he thought I mnight have serum sickness and has tested me for that - I am still awaiting results.

So, in the meantime I am off it. If blood is OK I guess it means I can return to it later again. For now though, I am to start Ketek in 2 weeks, which he said does botgh the jobs of Biaxin and Bicillin together.

So many people seem to have a great improvement on Bicillin and I still hold out hope it could work for me later on.

I did IV Rocephin twice and saw great improvement both times.

Due to crappy veins I was switched to IM Bicillin and have seen even more improvement, albeit slow.

IM is a dream to deal with compared to IV, so it has my vote. I did 2.4 mils/week for 8 months & just started pulsing it - on 2 weeks off 2 weeks. Don't know if it will work to clear up the remaining symptoms. But, my MD and another here are trying this. The other LLMD is having good success with his patient. I am the guinea pig with my MD. so, we'll see.

DLL: I would bet my unopened bottle of nice red wine (which I can't drink) that your sciatica is related to the injections. One nurse, not my usual one, nicked my sciatic nerve when she pulled the needle out too fast and I fell to my knees. I could barely walk for a couple of days. The pain was excrutiating. We couldn't shoot into that side of my body for weeks. I still feel it on occassion.

I can't comment on IM abx, but I've been doing IV's since Nov, and had huge improvement. My LLMD basically said it was my only reasonable option because of the severity of my damage. I'm glad I was too sick to argue....

As far as choosing what to take...Educate yourself, and ask questions of your dr. then as long as you trust him/her, go with that recomendation and continue to ask question report symptoms and communicate problems and changes.