: Strange Infections

[Guest guest]

Dearest ;

Hey there my friend....Excellent question and topic....this is aaaaan area I am

pursuing with " my " medical team now....you see, I have found the " Catch 22 " is

that I , or in this case we, need an immune system to do its thing and fight-off

evil bacteria (especially the resistant kinds such as the MRSA i had recently

and the resistant strain you mentioned); but we have this kick-butt autoimmune

disease so that IF and/or WHEN our immune system gets to doing its thing a

little too well it attacks us!!!  Thank you very much, Sir Still's!!!!!! 

Soooooooooooooooo, we take meds and try and regulate that fine line between too

much immunity and not enough....In my case, none of my docs mentioned prednisone

(I take 30mg every day) as an influencing factor either way...it is primarily an

anti-inflammatory.....The ones that got me were my two immunosuppresants: 

Imuran and Kineret.  You want to hear something crazy?  When Patty took me to

the ER on July 8, (I

found out later), I had a White Cell Count of TWO!   Yep, TWO....HUH?!    AND,

I had lung infections from the following nasty little " critters " :  MRSA, Staph.

and Strep A.  Sooooooooooo, back on the damn ventilator for over a week while

the docs tried to stabilize my O2 CO2 levels......This past Tuesday, I had been

on high-powered antibiotics for SEVENTY days!!!!!!!!  Even my RD admitted that

my immunosuppressants had been the most likely cause of my most recent stay in

the horsenpital....two Fridays ago he ordered bloodwork to check my

Immunoglobulin levels...they " came back " low indicating a suppressed immune

system....just damn....BUT, he reffered me to an immunologist at Duke University

Hospital stating that before we go any farther, we must " fix " my immune

system....yeah, I am game for that.....My appt. at Duke is Oct 1.  I printed out

the Bio. on the new Doc and just one of his research specialty areas is Systemic

JRA!!!!!!! How cool is

that?  So anyway , I hope somewhere in all this rambling, I have answered

your question and been of help to you....take care.

Many Blessings to ya girl!

Larry B.