posted
My son was on Bicillin injections for about 1 month. He took a break for about 3 weeks dues to a lumpy butt. He started back on the bicillin. He seems to be having terrible herx. After the 2nd shot it lasted for about 6 days. Now starting all over again.
He gets chills, fatigue, muscle and joint aches, his musical hallucinaitons are back and very nervous. He does have neuro psych lyme. Has anyone else herx like this starting the day after the injections? I don't know if maybe twice a week is to much for him.
He is also taking ZMAX, Malarone and Plaquenil.
Posts: 488 | From NY | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I've been on bicillin shots three times a week for about three weeks now and don't seem to have had a bad herx yet. You may want to ask your doc about your son's herx.
Posts: 547 | From Maryland | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Check with his doctor, But I can tell you about me and my husbands experience. My husband and I are on biccillin injection once a week and boy it has knocked our socks off.
I get my injection monday morning and monday night I am down for the count. Fever, I break out in sweats, ache all over and feel weak. Pain in my eyes, head, joints. I start to feel human again on tuesday night, and wednesday is better. It makes me think it must be doing something.
It does mess with my mind, I feel like I am one big fog. Thinking is slow and I lose my train of thought at times. Towards the end of the week things get better and I start to feel better.
So that is my experience with the injection!
Posts: 61 | From ILLINOIS | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
i had a bicillin herx for 5 days, starting approx. 2-3 hours after the initial injection approx. midafternoon and peaking late that night. by third day it had diminished considerably.
posted
This is interesting. First off, sorry your son is having such a terrible herx (or flare?) -- how miserable!
I don't seem to herx much at all on the bicillin -- I was doing two (1.2 million units) shots a week for about 5 months -- now, due to the bicillin LA shortage, I've had to switch to 1 of the 2.4 million unit shots a week -- boy howdy is that a thick, long needle! (I managed to do the injection, but it made me nervous -- that never happened with the smaller ones.)
I'm actually inclined to think that a good deal of your son's symptoms might be babs-related -- the chills, etc. -- and a lot of people herx like crazy on babs treatment (you mentioned zith and malarone).
Is he doing anything to detox the body or mediate the herx? I find that immensely helpful, myself.
-------------------- "Looks like freedom but it feels like death.. It's something in between, I guess"
Leonard Cohen, from the song "Closing Time" Posts: 822 | From California | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Fatigued, Your son's situation sounds similar to my son's (age 16). How old is your son? Mine has had significant improvement, especially with energy, since being on Bicillin for several months, once a week (1.2mu), but his constant headache pain has not budged. At first, he would herx for 3-4 days, beginning the evening after the shot. Gradually, over a few months he was herxing very little and many sx improved, except the headache.
Last month, our doc decided to try to up the injections to twice a week in hopes of helping with the headache pain. He had two shots one week and herxed badly. We were going on vacation the next week (which in the past we haven't even been able to consider)- and decided NOT to do the shots while away. He felt relatively well on the trip.
He ended up taking two weeks off and when we returned he had one shot and again herxed dramatically - very achy, feeling cold, then sweating (mostly his feet) and fatigue - HA pain very bad. Also, he had a brief episode of loss of depth perception which is a visual/neuro sx that he had not had in a long time.
The next week we tried two shots again and whamo! he was really down and out, in bed for about five days. I have to think that this is herxing, but also have wondered if some of this is the return of Babs sx since he's been off Babs treatment for about four months.
It might be hard for you to tell if he's herxing from bicillin or Malarone/zith if you started them both at the same time. But if he's on the Babs meds consistently and then seems worse right after bicillin - I would think that points to bicillin. It's always so hard to figure out.
We're going to try one shot a week and next week we'll try to get one after five or six days and work our way up. I do think that this med. has caused great improvement, but it's scary when you fear that they might be regressing.
Also, since your son has significant neuro involvement, have you tried B-12 injections? In addition to helping with energy levels it supposedly has strong neuro-protective and neuro detox effects. My son has been getting them 3x/week for the past few months and I think it's been helpful.
Good luck, Nancy
Posts: 688 | From Florida | Registered: Aug 2001
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David95928
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 3521
posted
fatigued15
I've been on Bicillin three times a week for over three years and have had no real problems with lumps. I'm pretty lean and have no trouble getting a 1.5 inch needle into muscle. I put the Bicillin into a standard syringe. However, the 1.2 MU tubex, that I imagine your son has been getting, has a 1.25 inch needle and that may not be long enough, leaving the Bicillin in body fat rather than muscle. That can lead to lumps and abnormal absorption. There was a study, that I will try to find, in which patients who were receiving IM injections were scanned. My recollection is that over 50% of the males and about 90% of the females were getting the medicine into body fat. The paper talked about the need to start using longer needles for all but the very lean.
Anyway, this may apply to your son, depending on his age and size. Bicillin is good stuff so it's important to make taking it tolerable. Cave talked about adding Marcaine. Lidocaine would also work. That might help reduce any inflamation caused by the shot. Here it is:
********************************************
CHICAGO - Women may not be getting the most out of vaccines and other injections, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
"Our study has demonstrated that a majority of people, especially women, are not getting the proper dosage from injections to the buttocks," said lead author Victoria O. Chan, M.B., registrar in the clinical medicine department of The Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin, Ireland.
"There is no question that obesity is the underlying cause," Dr. Chan said. "We have identified a new problem related, in part, to the increasing amount of fat in patients' buttocks."
Many medications are administered through injections into the muscles of the buttocks, including painkillers, vaccines, contraceptives and anti-nausea drugs. The upper, outer quadrant of the buttock is the preferred site for intramuscular injections, because there are relatively few major blood vessels, nerves and bones in this region that could be damaged by the needle. Yet the rich supply of microscopic blood vessels in muscle speeds drug absorption into the system.
Intramuscular injections are a common alternative when patients cannot swallow oral medications, are fasting for a procedure or have a metabolic disorder that inhibits the absorption of orally ingested medication. The use of intramuscular injections has increased over the past 10 years, and new medications have been developed for delivery in this way. However, Dr. Chan's research has demonstrated a majority of these injections are largely ineffective.
"Our study has shown that 68 percent of intramuscular injections do not reach the muscles of the buttock," Dr. Chan said. "The amount of fat tissue overlying the muscles exceeds the length of the needles commonly used for these injections."
Pharmaceutical companies design medications so that the proper dosage is absorbed into the blood stream from the muscle. Because fat tissue has significantly fewer blood vessels relative to muscle, less of the medication is absorbed into the blood stream and delivered to the appropriate part of the body. "This results in the patient either not receiving the maximum benefit of the drug or receiving no benefit at all, because the drug levels are insufficient to have any effect," Dr. Chan said.
Furthermore, if the medication is not absorbed into the blood stream, it remains in the fatty tissue where it can cause local infection and irritation.
Dr. Chan and colleagues recruited 50 patients scheduled for computed tomography (CT) exams of the abdomen or pelvis. The patient group was equally divided among men and women, ranging from 21 to 87 years old.
Prior to the CT exams, patients were given intramuscular injections with the addition of a small air bubble into the upper quadrant of the buttocks using a standard-size needle. The researchers analyzed the CT images to determine the location of the air bubble and also measured body mass index, distance to injection site and thickness of fat and muscle.
The overall success rate of the injections was 32 percent. The success rate among men was 56 percent, while the success rate among women was only 8 percent, meaning 23 of 25 women did not receive injections into the muscle. Compared to men, women typically have a higher amount of fat in their buttocks. Dr. Chan proposes that a longer needle length is required to increase the success rate of intramuscular injections. "The more fat tissue there is in the buttock, the less likely the needle will reach the muscles underneath that fat," Dr. Chan said.
Co-authors are Jane Colville, M.B., Orla Buckley, M.B., Samuel Hamilton, M.B., Thara Persaud, M.B., and William Torreggiani, M.B.
###
There was a study, that I will try to find, in which patients who were receiving IM injections were scanned. My recollection is that over 50% of the males and about 90% of the females were getting the medicine into body fat. The paper talked about the need to start using longer needles for all but the very lean.
Anyway, this may apply to your son, depending on his age and size. Bicillin is good stuff so it's important to make taking it tolerable. Cave talked about adding Marcaine. Lidocaine would also work. That might help reduce any inflamation caused by the shot.
-------------------- Dave Posts: 2034 | From CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Thank you to everyone for your replies. We see the doctor next week. Some great ides I am going to bring up to him.
My son is 26. He has been on the Malarone since November and the Zmax for 2 months.. He is suppose to get the injections 2 times a week but I think we should hold off a few days this week. I do think this is a herx with the musical hallucinations returning.
Anyone else on the b12 injections?
Thank you all!!!
Posts: 488 | From NY | Registered: Oct 2004
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TheCrimeOfLyme
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 4019
posted
I take bicillin, but only once a week. Three weeks out of every four week month, it doesn't bother me and its like injecting water.
HOWEVER, when I take the bicillin when the lyme is out and about playing, etc and readily available to kill, I get NAILED beyond belief with a herx.
Some people do that, but Im not saying that is the situatino. I used to herx all the freaking time. Now, I clearly have a herx pattern down again and one week out of every month-forget it.
-------------------- You want your life back? Take it. Posts: 3169 | From Greensburg, Pennsylvania | Registered: Jun 2003
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