No More Biaxin For Me!

At dinner tonight I took my final Biaxin pill.  This has been the antibiotic of choice for me over the past two years, since I became resistant to the first-line stuff, and then the others (Z-packs, levaquin, to name a few).  It is a fairly powerful antibiotic, even though it doesn't usually do much for me personally.  Baxin is known for its annoying side effect of leaving a nasty metallic taste in your mouth for the duration of its course.  It's worse when it first enters the bloodstream, but fades a bit later on.  Since I take it at dinner, by 9 PM the taste is so strong I want to eat something, just to mask it in my mouth.  I also wake up in the morning with horrible metal morning breath.  Really nice.

But today is the last one.  Hopefully for a very, very long time.

I have been on Biaxin almost continuously since early April according to my CVS.com records.  I actually started a course just a couple of days before we left for Florida just before Easter.  I carried the metal taste and the twice-a-day-don't-forget dosing with me down the East Coast as we stopped at hotels, visited relatives, and looked at rental properties and beaches.  When I got home, I was still feeling sick, so I did some investigating of my prescription history (see my side page "Do you know your Rx history?" for more about this topic).  Turns out, my allergist didn't prescribe the higher dose which he and my ENT normally would.  Which was interesting, because I noticed while on vacation that the metallic taste wasn't as bad as usual, and I sort of figured it was a not a good thing as far as its bacteria-zapping power was concerned.  So I called the allergist's office and explained that I was still no better than before the 10 day course, and that I noticed the dose wasn't as strong as usual.  When the doctor called back he didn't address that, but did agree I needed another course and he was "willing" to prescribe the higher dose.  Strange, because he'd given it to me not that long ago, in November.

This was the end of April: I started another 10 days.  Then I had about a week off during which I had to start the steroid Prednisone 5 days prior to surgery, and then was sent home from the hospital with another 2 weeks of Biaxin and a Prednisone taper.  It's been a week now since the Pred finished, which is a wonderful thing since the stuff makes me rather nutty with insomnia and mild mania.  Good for the housework, bad for the body.  And now, finally, I am done with Biaxin.  Six weeks since I started it-- this time around.

I won't get into the details, but I had back-to-back courses of Biaxin throughout all of February as well.  And before that, late November.  Before that, September.  And before that... well, it just keeps going back.

So for now, I am just incredibly relieved to be looking forward to a future without this metal taste in my mouth.  I supposed I should savor it right now.  I might never have the chance to experience it again.