posted
Well, I am about ready to give up my PICC line. I don't seem to have any improvement from IV abx. I get occasional 3 day headaches, swollen glands, neck rash, fatigue, comes in IV form?one day I saw blind spots for 20 min when I hooked up. But no improvement.
When I was on the mepron/zith I had the worst herx and major depression, so my LLMD stopped it.
Is there an anti-malarial that comes in IV form?
Posts: 830 | From Colorado | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Up and hoping for a reply...
Posts: 830 | From Colorado | Registered: Mar 2005
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liz28
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posted
The answer is probably no.
There's four forms of malaria. If you have the one lethal form, plasmodium falciparum, you probably wouldn't have time to get to a state-of-the-art clinic anyway, since it can kill in eight hours or less.
Also, most Western travelers carry medical kits that contain sterile needles, syringes, scalpals, sutures, etc. so they don't have to rely on potentially contaminated medical equipment in the tropics. An IV is not practical in situations where you can't even trust a needle and thread, so it's not a focus of malaria treatment development.
Your other choices are Riamet/Coartem and other artemisinin-based medications, quinine, malarone (usually too weak for babesia), mepron, fansidar, and this icky, horrible drug called lariam, or mefloquine, that is has a high rate (10% minimum) of causing neurological damage.
Chloroquine, which is closely related to plaquenil, is now discredited because malaria has developed resistance to it.
Doxycycline is often used as a preventative to keep you from getting malaria, but does not seem to be helpful in getting rid of it.
Primaquine, a malaria "cyst buster," must be taken simultaneously with other malaria drugs to cure the relapsing forms of malaria, plasmodium vivax and plasmodium ovale. Otherwise, the bug just goes into dormancy and comes back whenever you stop taking your other medications. You must complete a G6PD deficiency test before taking it, although if you did have the deficiency, which you probably don't since it's found primarily in African and Middle Eastern men from malaria-endemic regions, you would just lower your dosage.
If you have any luck on this subject, please post it. There's a growing number of online writers with this issue, and if we reach critical mass, maybe we can find a solution.
Here's a list of organizations that deal with this issue:
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