posted
hi, can anyone give me the differences between bicillin la and cr? and will it hurt to be mixing them? i have been on bicillin la since march,05 and it is the only thing that's helped me. i was having trouble getting the bicillin la from my pharmacy somtimes, so i would have to use a different one, well it got to the point where my pharmacy couldn't get it at all so i changed pharmacies about 2-3 mos ago. today while i was giving myself my shot i realized it wasnt bicillin la it was bicillin cr,(don't ask how i never notice earlier, i keep asking myself) i called the pharmacy and they told me i should be getting the la, because its stronger and that is what my doctor ordered, but he also told me that every time i got the bicillin filled there they were giving my the wrong one. i'm just wondering if this is why i stopped doing as well as i was, i have been going slowly backwards for a while now, with the bad headaches coming back for the last month and a half. any info would help. thanks, paula
*people don't realize, as long as they have their health: they have everything*
Posts: 39 | From sharon,pa usa | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether injection of patients with Bicillin CR is less painful than injection with Bicillin LA. To discover if Bicillin CR with the addition of procaine, which doubles the volume, causes the injection to be less painful. DESIGN: An experimental, double-blinded crossover design was used for this study. SETTING: University children's and women's tertiary care emergency Department (ED) with an annual pediatric census of 22,000. PARTICIPANTS: A convenience sample was enrolled from the student body of a large university and house staff, and employees of a 152 bed children's and women's hospital in southern Alabama. The sample size was limited to 50 participants, all of whom completed the study. METHODS: Each participant received two penicillin injections, one Bicillin CR and one Bicillin LA, and rated the pain of the injection immediately after the injection, 1 hour after the injection and 12 hours after the injection. A visual analogue scale was the tool used for measuring the pain. The penicillin injections were randomized using a random number generator. RESULTS: For each of the three periods, comparisons of pain were made between the Bicillin CR versus Bicillin LA injections. Bicillin LA pain score values were consistently higher for all but the 12-hour comparison. These differences were statistically significant (P < 0.008-0.002). CONCLUSIONS: Injection of Bicillin CR with the addition of procaine to the benzathine penicillin G is statistically significantly less painful than the injection of Bicillin LA without the addition of procaine to the benzathine penicillin G, even though the Bicillin LA is one-half the volume of the Bicillin CR due to the addition of procaine to the Bicillin CR.
Posts: 510 | From NEVERLAND.USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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Jill E.
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9121
posted
Bicillin - LA is the long-acting one.
Here is an excerpt from Dr. B's guidelines: "For an antibiotic in the penicillin class to be effective, time-killing curves show that significant levels of antibiotic must be sustained for 72 hours. Bicillin - LA is a sustained release formulation that meets these criteria."
The Bicillin-LA 1.2 million units, in my experience, is the particular dosage that is the hardest to obtain due to the manufacturing shortage. It usually requires coordinating between King Pharmaceuticals (the manufacturer), a local retail pharmacy and an intermediate distributor to all work together and release it to you as an emergency patient.
I had to write a long pleading letter to King Pharmaceutical to get a box, pay full cash price, and I've had to jump through major hoops every single time coordinating with local pharmacies, making phone calls sometimes twice a day, going in person and begging....I've learned to grovel a lot to get this medication.
Yet others I know (particularly those with group insurance, not individual insurance like mine) could get Bicillin through their insurance mail order pharmacy and pay a small copayment.
The CR is easier to get but is not what's usually recommended for Lyme.
There are some other options - if you can get a medical doctor/clinic or hospital pharmacy to order it for you, it may be easier to get.
There is a pediatric dose of 600,000 million units. In a pinch, you can use one pediatric dose in each hip (have two injections each time) instead of 1.2 million units once each time.
The 2.4 million units is also easier to obtain. Even some of my local pharmacies can get it for me (again, I have to pay full cash price - it's very expensive). If that's your only option, you can have a compounding pharmacy or a nurse or someone split the 2.4 into two 1.2 million unit syringes if they can do it under sterile conditions.
Jill
-------------------- If laughter is the best medicine, why hasn't stand-up comedy cured me? Posts: 1773 | From San Diego | Registered: Apr 2006
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i called the pharmacy and they told me i should be getting the la, because its stronger and that is what my doctor ordered, but he also told me that every time i got the bicillin filled there they were giving my the wrong one.
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