posted
today we restarted my son's artemisinin... and he has pain in his eyes tonight. Wondering if it is a herx or a side effect from artemisinin.... Anybody?
Posts: 758 | From now TX | Registered: Mar 2001
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
What did the instructions say that came with the artemesian, sp? Sorry, but I think this is over the counter but not positive.
I was thinking this was a RX med and my clinic pharmacy prints out a sheet telling all about it and ALL SIDE EFFECTS. Bringing this up for others to answer.
try also www.medlineplus.org which is NIH's medical library of illnesses/meds/dictionaries, etc. and very user friendly. Type name in search feature or go to drugs & look it up that way. Bettyg
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posted
I too was wandering about eye pain. My daughter is on her fourth week of Mepron and is complaining of pain behind her eyeballs that last about 10 minutes each time. This is the first time she has had this symptom, although her headaches are always around the eye/sinus area.
Is eye pain a bab. symptom or lyme or both?
Anyone have experience with this?
Posts: 263 | From Georgia | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I'm struggling with the Babs too. It just won't go away. My Mepron dose was upped to 3 tsp. a day and boy have my eyes been hurting. I can see fine- in fact I had an eye examine and everything was ok. However this pain does hurt behind my eyeball and lasts forever. I wonder if the drug is finally getting in there and that is the reaction to die off.
Posts: 238 | From Bethlehem, PA | Registered: Oct 2004
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Dave6002
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9064
posted
Qinghaosu (ARTEMISININ)
Artemisinin was originally developed in 1972 in China (Chines Institute of material medicine) from the plant Artemisia annua L (sweet wormwood), a sesquiterpene lactone (emperical formula C15 H22 O5. Artemisinin is the active ingredient in qinghao, a Chinese herbal tea that have been used for 150 years to treat malaria and haemorrhoids. It grows in the wild in China and now has been found to grow in other parts of the world too, though the species may vary a bit. Locally, it is prepared as an infusion of the dried leaves. (Click here to see Sweetwormwood, the herbs)
Derivatives of Artemisinin are; artemether, artesunate, arteether and artelinate. Artemisinin and these compounds are quickly converted to their active plasma metabolite, dihydroartemisinin, which is the chemical with the anti-malarial activity.
Artemisinin, artemether and arteether are water insoluble, artesunate and artelinate are water-soluble (Click here to see chemical structures of Artemisinin and derivatives).
MECHANISM OF ACTION
Artemisinin is a rapid parasiticidal of the asexual stages; it is anti-gametocyte and blocks sporogony (heppner and Ballou 1998). It produces ultra-structural changes to the growing trophozoite parasite. A whorl is produced in the food vacuole and the parasite's mitochondria proliferated. This reduces parasite's survival (Hien and White 1993). Endoperoxide bridge is essential for its anti-malarial activity. The compound is activated by the intra-parasitic haem to irreversibly decompose, generating free radicals that alkylate and oxidises proteins and lipids. The membrane of the parasite is damaged by lipid peroxidation and channel proteins' inactivation. (Ridley & Hudson 1998). Parasites clearance times are shorter than with chloroquine and also symtomatic response.
PARMACOKINETICS
Clinical evaluation of therapeutic regimens is required to validate clinical efficacy of this promising drug (Oduola et al 1998). Artemisinin has a quick onset of action thereby, stoping the parasites from developing and cytoadherence is not reached. Drug disposition of Artemisinin after oral administration has been determined, using a one-compartment model with separate pharmacokinetic estimates for children and adults. The population estimates for Artemisinin clearance and distribution volume, respectively, were 432 Lh-1 and 1600 L for adults and 14.4 Lh-1 kg-1 and 37.9 Lkg-1 for children, with an inter-subject variability (collectively for both age groups) of 45% and 104%, respectively. The oral bioavailability was estimated to decrease from Day 1 to Day 5 by a factor of 6.9, a value found to be similar for children and adults (Sidhu et al. 1998). Half-lives of Artemisinin is 4hrs, artesunate, 45 min and artemether, 4-11 hrs (Batty et al 1998). Findings like this have advocated the dosing of Artemisinin to children according to bodyweight and to adults according to a standard dose.
CLINICAL USES
Warrell, D. A. (1977) predicted that Artemisinin and derivatives would become the treatment of choice in the coming decade. Artemisinin, artemether, artesunate, arteether are now widely used in South East Asia, some parts of Africa, while artelinate is a research agent in the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Washington D. C. Artemisinin derivatives have become the treatment of choice in the coastal parts of Malaya, Sarawak, Singapore and Asia Pacific region. Clinical efficacy, in terms of parasites clearance and fever subsidence times, was comparable between children and adults. Within 48 hr, 70% of the cases do become afebrile and the peripheral smears usually negative in 100% of the cases. The drugs are well tolerated.
TOXICITY
Well-documented clinical uses of Artemisinin and derivatives have shown few insignificant side effects, but findings in rats' studies are causing controversy. Intra-muscular arteether at 25-mg/ Kg/ day resulted in rats' brainstem pathology with damage to the auditory nuclei. Parenteral artemether in the treatment of cerebral malaria in Gambien children shows a prolonged recovery from coma and post-treatment convulsions than the same treatment with quinine. Also in Vietnamese adults, a prolonged recovery was noted, but no increased in mortality or neurological behaviour afterwards (Heppner and Ballou 1998). Others are transient heart block, transient decrease in blood neutrophills and brief episodes of fever.
COMBINATION THERAPY
Short course artemether as monotherapy have been shown to be limited by secondary malaria episodes. Therefore long term, combinations are now being tried. In rodent studies, Artemisinin potentiates the effects of mefloquine, primaquine and tetracycline. (Hien and White. 1993). Thailand's multi-drug resistant P. falciparum malaria (uncomplicated acute) is now treatable with artemether-mefloquine as a short course treatment, which has good patients compliance, clinical effectiveness, efficacy, tolerability. Low dose intravenous artesunate followed by mefloquine was found to be well tolerated and rapidly effective in treating severe falciparum malaria contracted in Indonesia and India. Therewas no relapse of clinical disease in all four cases after 28 days.
Posts: 1078 | From Fairland | Registered: Apr 2006
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Dave6002
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9064
posted
Artemether is more effective than artemisinin(6X).
I took 3x100mg for about one week and got severe fatigue. However, the same amount of artemisinin didn't cause any obvious problem.
Good news is my palpitation calmed down immeadiately within a day with artemether but not artemisinin.
Palpitation was thought Babs-related.
Posts: 1078 | From Fairland | Registered: Apr 2006
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