Docj077 or Bryan, medical question:

[CCS]

My girlfriend's mom, probably 55, has been to many doctors and specialists and expensive clinics and none of them could help her.

She can't go more than 10 days without anti-biotics or else she gets pnuemonia. She's been taking a lot of anti-biotics for a few years now. I guess it takes a while to get over it each time, and when she stops the anti-biotics, she catches it again, and has had it 6 times. A recent blood test showed that something now is wrong with her kidneys, but I don't know what.

She is also taking a lot of Prednisone and is addicted to it now. I think she took for allergies or something. Been taking that several years. She is taking a lot of other meds, mostly for allergy or pain or anti-biotics.

She looks really old. She does not drink or smoke, and tries to eat healthy, but her face just looks really bad.

She also does not sleep well or much due to pain. Took the docs forever to realize it was her back since the pain was elsewhere.

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I told her eat lots of live culture yogart (she is), take anti-oxidants like GTE, get a memory foam mattress topper, get beta-glucan, and take melatonin at night. Not sure if she is doing all those or not. I told her that prednisone supresses the production of all adrenaline compounds, suppresses the immune system, and that anti-biotics can damage healthy cells in the nose and ears. I think she should focus on inhalers since that would spare the rest of the body. I also told her that NSAIDs can make the kidneys over concentrate urine. Not sure if that is her problem, though. I also told her that her dependency on prednisone is why she gets hypoglycemia long after a meal and during sleep. I also told her to get her DHEA levels checked and look into supplementation.

Any other advice you can give?

 

[oni]

What sort of blood tests have they done on her?

 

[CCS]

What sort of blood tests have they done on her?

I wish I knew. Yeah, I guess you can't help much without the full picture. She does not want to talk about it because she is tired of being sick. I just know she saw an immune specialist who is also a speciallist in allergies and one other thing, that is the same.

 

[docj077]

Your post is very vague, CCS. Unfortunately, you didn't really give me a lot to go on.

It would be very nice to know what sort of organisms she has problems with when she gets pneumonia. Is it gram positives, fungi, or something else?

What age did this all begin at? Has she been dealing with this all her life? What is current status of her immune system? What did her last white blood cell differential demonstrate? What did her last CBC show? What antibiotics does she typically take for her infections? Aminoglycosides are known for ototoxicity and nephrotoxity. Is that what she's taking?

I have too many questions and I don't think that you'll be able to answer them.

 

[CCS]

Here is some more info, "Whenever it was that my mom got her insulin/blood sugar levels checked, she came up normal, even with all that prednisone. She does wean herself off slowly.. VERY slowly, and does not seem to be able to be off the prednisone (or antibiotics) for long, cuz as soon as she comes off of them, she starts getting pneumonia, which she has to be very careful not to get."
She also has been having some of these problems for 28 years, though I don't think it was this bad. I'll forward your questions to her and see if I can get more info. My girlfriend is having the same problems her mom had 28 years ago (allergy problems, lung infections) and they wonder if it is genetic.
Also, her mom did not start eating healthy until recently, I just found out.

 

[CCS]

Docj077, she often takes benedril to fall asleep. Do you know if the brain will make melatonin and go through the right cycles if it is put to sleep by benedril or valium?




I just remebered last night when my girlfried was sleepy at 6pm and needed to get up to see a friend, her mom gave her some Aderal to wake her up. Fortunately she only took half of it. Then later that night when she was wide awake, her mom told her to take a valium to fall asleep. I told her not to, and she told me she did not want to, but did not want to lie to her mom either. She needs to grow up and tell her mom no sometimes. I'm mailing her melatonin, and told her how to find the right dose, and told her to only use it if she needs help falling asleep, and told her how important propper sleep, and not just getting knocked out, is.

If her mom is self prescribing herself all these meds and been doing it so long, it is no wonder she looks so old.

 

[docj077]

Docj077, she often takes benedril to fall asleep. Do you know if the brain will make melatonin and go through the right cycles if it is put to sleep by benedril or valium?




I just remebered last night when my girlfried was sleepy at 6pm and needed to get up to see a friend, her mom gave her some Aderal to wake her up. Fortunately she only took half of it. Then later that night when she was wide awake, her mom told her to take a valium to fall asleep. I told her not to, and she told me she did not want to, but did not want to lie to her mom either. She needs to grow up and tell her mom no sometimes. I'm mailing her melatonin, and told her how to find the right dose, and told her to only use it if she needs help falling asleep, and told her how important propper sleep, and not just getting knocked out, is.

If her mom is self prescribing herself all these meds and been doing it so long, it is no wonder she looks so old.

Yeah, the drug use is rather disturbing.

As for the predisone, her health doesn't really make sense. Being off the predisone should actually help the immune system. Prednisone suppresses the migration of leukocytes, suppresses the immune system, promotes immune cell death, traps immune cells in the lymph nodes, and decreases capillary permeability. The fact that she get pneumonia when it is discontinued seems sort of counter-intuitive to me.

Both of them do NEED to develop proper sleep habits. Using drugs to regulate your sleep cycles is a very bad idea and very hard on the body.

I hope that she is seeing someone other than her family doctor. She probably needs to be referred to an Allerge and Asthma physician.