Bactrim and levaquin

i've been on bactrim dm for about a week now (2 doses/day for 14 days) for a possible MRSA infection (should know the results tomorrow...hopefully). about 2 or 3 days into it, i felt extremely lethargic and achy (all my joints were sore and almost 'warm'). woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago with my entire tongue feeling numb and the base of my skull hurting like hell and my lymph nodes on the back of my neck swelling and sore to the touch. since then, i've had chronic pain in this area. after reading some of the posts here, i decided to stop my dose until i could speak to my doctor since i wasn't able to speak to him yet today, i decided to resume bactrim until i can get on something else. it's a terrible feeling being trapped between treatment for a potential MRSA infection and stopping treatment because of the possibility of serious side effects. i just took another dose moments ago and am honestly worried i've made a mistake. but what choice do i have when faced with the possibility of an infection that is also very serious? i can't do nothing...

i honestly don't have a lot of options with a MRSA infection...i see people on here mentioning cipro or levaquin, but these also have tons of posts on here about crazy side effects.

this past week has been a living nightmare...

i hope those of you who have experienced such terrible problems with bactrim will find something that helps you...

First I am someone who believes in the less drugs a person has to take, the better off they are. I will go days with a headache before I take an asprin. Recently, on Oct 19, 2008 I was prescribed Bactrim DS and Keflex for what DR. said looked like staph infection in ear. I had a cyst or a pimple or something in my ear that burst the night before so I went to the Urgent care to have it checked out (should never have gone to the doctor for this). Against my better judgment I filled the prescription and took the antibiotics for the first 6 days out of the 10 day course. Honestly I think hydrogen peroxide would have been fine for the ear issue and no need for overkill with antibiotics. I informed this Doctor that in 2005 I had been bitten by a dog and was given a double dose of antibiotics for that, I had a slight reaction and I wasn't sure he should be putting me on another double dose of antibiotics because of this. He went on and on about drug resistant staph strains these days. I stopped taking the drugs on day 6 as I could tell I was going to have problems. The next day my left eye swelled and I was itchy all over my body. The day after that, woke up, left eye swelled again and still really itchy all over. I tried calling the Urgent Care no one answer the phone. Called the pharmacy told them what was happening. They told me to stop taking the drugs which I already had done and to take benadryl. Started benadryl. Next day swollen left eye, itchy all over and now I had two hives, one on my upper left leg/pelvic area, and on on the right side of my waist. Went back to the Urgent Care I told them this is due to the antibiotics they prescribed, note it in my chart and find out what they prescribed 3 years earlier when I was bitten by the dog. Was told to take benedryl or Claritin and work on this from the inside and use hydrocortizone creams and oatmeal baths for the itching on the outside. Started all of this, but nothing helped with the itching. Next morning woke up, my eye was not swollen, but I had hives all over my body (mainly on my butt, legs, lower torso, and scalp) and really intense itching everywhere. My skin temperature felt extremely warm when I touched myself. I also started wheezing a bit but grabbed an outdated inhaler for Provental took a few puffs and the wheezing went away. Next morning, woke up now the hives were on the left side of my face, back, moving onto the chest, a few on the stomach, lower torso covered, legs covered, moving onto my ankles, scalp covered, and the left side of my bottom lip was really swollen. My left ear was flaming red (both ears hurt badly) and was swollen to twice it's normal size. The itching was unbearable. I took photos of myself, popped a Claritin, and a benadryl and knocked myself out for 4 hours. When I woke up I still looked the same (like s*#t) but the itching was finally gone. I took myself and the photos back to the Urgent Care. The doctor could not believe I looked like that as he had seen me two days prior with only two small hives and a slightly swollen eye. I was given a shot of epinephrine and am now taking prednisone and was told if I have any more breathing issues go straight to the ER. That night the hives moved to my wrist and palms of my hands. The palms were extremely painful, swollen, and flaming red. They were itchy, but if I touched or rubbed them, they burned like they were on fire. Pretty much over the course of this, any of the areas that were nuclear red burned like they were on fire (one day it was my knees, one day my ankle, three or four times it was the ears, the palms continuous for two days). I went to bed that night with my palms resting on bags of ice. Yesterday woke up, had small hives all over my face (luckily no swollen lip or eye), hives were now on my neck, moving onto my arms, hands, and feet, a couple on my chest, and they are still all over the rest of my body. At lunch time yesterday (Friday I started sweating behind my neck and I took it as a good sign since I had not broke a sweat in the past 5 days and my skin did not feel like it was 5, 10, 15 degrees hotter then normal when I touched it (other then my flaming red palms and ankle which still really hurt). It is Saturday November 1, 2008 and this is my first day (trial day) not taking Claritin or Benadryl but still on the prednisone. I still feel very drained due to the previous six days of hell (sinus hurts as well). I am pretty ticked off as I missed a concert on Thursday night because of this. Couldn't exactly go to the event with hives all over my body, especially on my face, swollen lip, and feeling really drained.

The Urgent Care got back to me on Friday regarding the antibiotics I was prescribed when I suffered the dog bite. I was prescribed Augmentin and Bactrim DS. I am trying to find out from an ear nose throat doctor what he prescribed for me right after the dog bite and I will have a list of all the antibiotics to potentially stay away from. After the dog bite incident and taking the antibiotics to clear up the infection in my leg it felt like I was having sinus issues (in hindsight I thing it was an antibiotic reaction as I am having those same symptoms now) so I went to a sinus doctor. He prescribe and antibiotic thinking I had a sinus infection. I told him I just finished a few days before a double round of antibiotics for a dog bite (how on earth could I possibly have a sinus infection?). Stupid me I should have waited for the lab results to come back before I started taking that third round of antibiotics. Of course I did not have a sinus infection. Took a round of antibiotics for nothing, but then had a swollen eye issue for the next 6 to 9 months to deal with along with trying to get all the residual antibiotics out of my system, get rid of the yeast infections I now had due to the antibiotics killing everything good in my body, and reestablishing the good flora and fauna back into my intestinal system. It took months to recover from that.

I am concerned how many months or years will I be suffering from the consequences of this unnecessary round of antibiotics? Will my eye periodically swell for the next 6 to 9 months? Will I continue to get hives? Have I suffered any permanent internal organ damage due to this? Will I die the next time a doctor prescribes me antibiotics? Pretty positive I will not let any doctor prescribe to me the Bactrim DS ever again as that one looks like it could be the one I am allergic too, but I do not know if I am allergic to the others.

Pretty much people If any DR tries to prescribe to you Bactrim DS or one of it's relatives under a different name, my advise is to insist on some other type of antibiotic as this one the harmful side effects outway the good.

Was taking Levaquin for UTI and prostate infection, which caused horrible side effects. Now taking Bactrim and feel terrible, do not sleep well and get up feeling so tired cannot do daily chores. Guess will have to tolerate all this in order to get rid of infection, but wonder if there are not some antibiotics that do not have all this terrible side effects and still do their job.

Hi Gang,
I have a problem of my own with bactrim, but I want to start this post by saying I am an emergency room physician assistant and I prescribe bactrim all the time due to a number of reasons - one, it does, according to state guidelines, cover MRSA (people misunderstand that MRSA is a PENICILLIN resistant staph - but USUALLY responds to bactrim, levaquin, or cipro (ciprofloxacin). And two, traditionally bactrim is the cheapest and I personally try my best to keep my patients costs down (I have 6 kids and even I cannot afford the $800 a month cost just for insurance so we put money in a health savings account and pay cash for everything - though we rarely go for just "colds" like so many do). But I developed a UTI which tend to be real bad in men as we do not get them as much as women do - this is due to the urinary tract and anatomy differences. Almost ALWAYS a UTI is from E. COLI 80-90% of the time - don't let that scare you as it is a normal digestive enzyme - but outside of the digestive tract or if exposed to an outside source like bad meat - it cause infection), why that matters is some antibiotics, like zithromax, do not cover that bacteria.

Well, to the point. I started on it for my UTI, normal dose, 2 times a day. I noticed I was having some weird dizziness and even slurred speech - no rash. I noted in this blog that people worry SO MUCH about the rash, but the rash is usually not any big deal. We see it, but unfortunately what we see scares us more than what may be going on silently inside of us!

So I have these symptoms and now I have a lump under my jaw that I can hardly open my mouth and still slurred speech. The Mrs thinks I am taking something else or who knows what, but I almost felt like a stroke. No headache, some nausea at times, but no rash. The jaw pain and I guess a left side neck pain are pretty intense today. I am stopping the bactrim and I promise I will be a bit more sensitive to others who I prescribe it to! I was looking for side effects and came across this blog.

Jamie B. PA-C******

I was given Bactrim at the ER where I was diagnosed with a staph infection. They gave me 800 mg twice a day for 7 days. On day 8 I returned to my regular GP because another boil had appeared. He said the dosage the ER had me on was not high enough. He doubled me to 3200 mg a day. After 4 days on this high dose I began to feel terrible, flu like symptoms, all of my lymph nodes were swollen and painful to the touch, especially the ones at the base of your neck/head. That night my eyes started itching like crazy and began to swell. I went back to the doctor she said it was allergies in my eyes and prescribed some expensive drops, told me I had a virus causing my body aches and fever, and lanced my other boil, she then put me on Doxycycline. That night I broke out in a terrible rash from head to toe that was itchy, then became more like a very painful sunburn. I thought I was allergic to the Doxycycline, so I called the doctor who switched me to Levaquin, wow,,,I sure have spent a lot of money on medicines to discover tonight on this forum that all of this was due to Bactrim. I will NEVER take it again as long as I live.

I took Bactrim for 5 days for a UTI earlier this month and it went great, I felt fine and was very happy with it. Then, last week, for an unrelated preventive matter a doctor wanted me to take levaquin for a week before a minor elective surgery and I asked if I couldn't take Bactrim instead because it cost so much less. Well, did I ever get sick after the first pill. Chills, fever, headache, bloodshot eyes, rib pain and aches and pains all over, so weak I could barely make it to the bathroom, I thought I was going to die. I didn't connect it with the bactrim because I had tolerated it so well just a couple of weeks earlier. So, 3 days later when I felt somewhat better, I took another bactrim and the symptoms came back though not quite as bad. Be careful with this, just because you don't get side effects the first time you take it doesn't mean you might not get them in the future.

BEWARE OF TENDON RUPTURE DUE TO BACTRIM / LEVAQUIN
I had a UTI that was resistant to Bactrim. After ten days of Bactrim I was put on ten days of Levaquin. Ended up with white blotches (I am dark-
skinned) all over my body. But that's not all. Then my Achilles tendons nearly burst. Horrible pains I couldn't imagine how it was caused. Come to find out that both Bactrim and Levaquin have tendon rupture as a side-effect (never heard it from the doctor or pharmacist though). Since I was on both for a total of twenty days... I suppose I was fair game. Medicine is often a good thing for many who could not reduce or alleviate their ailments without it -- but I would have really liked to have known my increased risk of tendon rupture BEFORE the fact. The odds are probably quite remote for anyone to experience tendon rupture when taking these antibiotics, but were elevated in my case due to the immediate back-to-back, double-dose of Bactrim and levaquin. I hope this posting can prevent my experience from happening to someone else.

After having many UTI's in the past, the problem with Bactrim was that it stopped working. I developed an immunity or tolerance to the drug, which didn't help with my next infection. I was then prescribed Levaquin, which, despite the cost, works, but it does take longer for the infection to completely clear up. Sometimes I wish I could take Bactim like I used to. $$$