Bactrim/Septrin

[Bloom]

I have been on Septrin since I had a pretty severe pneumonia in September. I was taking one tablet three times a week. I stopped taking it about two weeks ago as I began to have abdominal pain and distension with diarrhoea.

I sometimes have sharp stabbing abdominal pain which can wake me up during the night, but its not constant and I've had this over several years. If my illness gets worse the pain gets worse.

These symptoms seem different though and I am tending to think it's caused by Septrin. After I had pneumonia my steroids were increased and I did feel better than I felt for a long time. However, when I started to reduce my prednisolone, I began to have some haemoptysis and chest pain and discomfort.

I had two doses of Rituximab in December 2017 , and had another one 10 days ago. Has anyone else had abdominal pain and diarrhoea with Septrin or is it just the Wegs. Interestingly I notice that my Wegener's never seems to go for everything at once. It'll either be targeting my lungs, my sinuses or my joints, but not usually all together!

I don't want to say anything about the abdominal symptoms in case they decide not to give me the next dose of Rituximab!

Hope this makes sense.

Best Wishes

Bloom

[Pete]

Have you told your doctor(s) about these symptoms? You may have an infection (or something else) going on that could be more effectively treated with another medication. Please make the call!!

[seied]

Hi,

I'm no doctor. If I were in your situation, I would go see my doctor ASAP and get a blood test.
This may or may not be helpful, but there is another type of vasculitis that has symptoms similar to what you describe. A blood test should help diagnose the cause of these symptoms.

Good luck.

Ed.

[drz]

If you don't feel comfortable sharing information about everything going on in your body which may be relevant to your care and treatment, you probably need to find another physician that you trust enough to do this.

I have found most of my questions and concerns regarding various symptoms were nothing that required any intervention and those that did were medically necessary. Discussing them with a trusted physician is best way to ascertain what is which and has greatly reduced my stress and anxiety.