Update 5

I have not been very good at keeping up with my blog and I hope I am going to remember what has happened since my last post. But since the last post my GP has put me on yet another antibiotic to try and clear up this infection which she has at last managed to identify, or should I say Pathology have identified as streptococci. Having identified this bacteria she decided to put me on another antibiotic called Trimethoprim, The course of which I completed on Saturday I.e. two days ago. I don’t know whether the bacteria has been kicked into touch but what I can say, is I am in just as much pain as before.

But the investigations go on. Last Friday I had an MRI this time on my abdomen which included some completely different administrations, before, during and after the scan. I have lost count how many MRIs I have had over the past 4 years but this one was completely different which I suppose was because of where they were scanning. The brief conversation I had with the technician (I am not sure what the real job description is) at the end of the scan revealed that the results of the procedure would take two weeks and in that time I think I am having another sort of scan at the request of the Urology specialist with whom I had a telephone consultation about two weeks ago.

So to try and summarise of where I think I’ve got to: The GP is still waiting for all the jigsaw pieces to be collated so she can hopefully identify why I am getting these repeat infections and then perhaps prescribe the right antibiotic to shift them. The trimethoprim which was the last course I completed two days ago, appears to have been the least effective in terms of my pain attacks whereas the Nitrofurontoin seemed to coincide or perhaps was the reason for the pains at best going or at least making them manageable. When I say making the pain manageable this is partly thanks to a course I have been put on through the National Health called PathwayThroughPain which I am finding quite helpful.

Because my right foot and ankle were beginning to swell to the point I was finding it very difficult to put on a shoe, my GP prescribed blood thinners at the same time as the new antibiotic trimethoprim, and she fixed up for me to go to the hospital in Margate, to the DVT clinic. They swiftly assessed, after an ultrasound scan, that A DVT was not present so that is one thing that can be ruled out. But why is my right foot swelling up, is it because of the weather as it does coincide with the very hot spell we had at the end of the previous week? Is it because of the infection? Is it because my kidneys are not working, but if that was the case then why just my right foot?

I am going to finish now, knowing that I have probably missed out some things and possibly confused timings and drugs. I am going to try and fix another appointment with the GP to see if I can be put back onto the Nitrofurantoin, to see if that will quell the current pains. Could it be that there is a component of that drug that acts on the nervous system? I think that there are other questions to be raised from these trials which may be of some interest to the drug companies? The doctors? The MS nurses? The Neurologists?