So my girlfriend and I were in Cancun 2/23 to 3/4 and on 3/1 she came down with a nasty bacterial infection (Montazuma’s revenge). It got so bad that I checked her in to the ER at one of the local hospitals and they put her on an IV of fluids and antiboitics.
We came home and after a couple days she seemed fine.
Ten days later or so after a night of partying she felt sick again and had more liquid poops. She’s had pain in her stomach and her doc’s have taken a week to get her parasite test results back.
They are saying she has an infection in her intestines and there’s a lot of white blood cells. She’s freaking out, I’m definitely worried.
I was hoping someone who knows more than her stupid medical assistant could ease our minds that she’ll be ok. She asked the girl on the phone if it was life threatening and the response was “ummm I don’t think so” (how fucking irresponsible is that)
I’ve had this before also while traveling to Mexico. Now everytime I go to a foreign country I like to take doxycycline, which is pretty easy to get and saves a lot of trips to the bathroom. Your girl will be fine.
High white blood cell count is indicative of an active infection. Doxycycline is a whimpier antibiotic. Guessing she was given something with a broader spectrum such as metronidazole . Is she at home or in the hospital? If the infection was life threatening she would probably be kept at the hospital. Just make sure she takes her antibiotics religiously and doesn’t stop even if she feels better before the end of treatment.
hahaha oh man. i have had Montezuma’s Revenge before. sweating, shivering, puking, shitting all at the same time. what a horrible 12 hours that was. lasted a total of 60 hours or so, the first 12 felt horrible. haha good times
[quote]CCCP wrote:
High white blood cell count is indicative of an active infection. Doxycycline is a whimpier antibiotic. Guessing she was given something with a broader spectrum such as metronidazole . Is she at home or in the hospital? If the infection was life threatening she would probably be kept at the hospital. Just make sure she takes her antibiotics religiously and doesn’t stop even if she feels better before the end of treatment. [/quote]
Flagyl (metrondiazole) isn’t a broad spectrum antibiotic, but is usually given along with another antibiotics to prevent C. diff infections in the bowels. Flagyl does make sense for some parasitic infections. Even with meds, if loose stools continue, that can effect electrolyte levels, which can be life threatening.
Doxycycline is a member of the the tetracycline family, and is a broad spectrum antibiotic.
How high is the white count? If it’s just over normal range, even stress can be the reason. The higher it goes, the more indicative of infection it becomes, in general at least.
I was hoping someone who knows more than her stupid medical assistant could ease our minds that she’ll be ok. She asked the girl on the phone if it was life threatening and the response was “ummm I don’t think so” (how fucking irresponsible is that)[/quote]
Medical assistant as in just takes your vital signs? Or did you mean physician’s assistant who actually can write prescriptions and has a master degree and a decent amount of medical knowledge?
My money’s on a parasitic infection. However, tests for a lot of the parasites that cause diarrhea don’t take a fucking week. Your average premed can find them in a stool sample after meeting once a week for a few months.
What antibiotics did they give her? Did they ever actually find any bacterial culprit?
I feel her pain. There is a virus that goes around and is very contagious. I think its called Rotavirus or something. Makes you shit like a fire hose for a few days. Like one of the other posters said, the first 12 hours suck. After that its just shitting every half hour.
I’ve been to cancun 3 times. I time I got the shits from too many Long Island Ice Teas…the other time, after High School Graduation, me and 12 friends went down. We all ate at the same restaurant one night…4 hotel rooms all lined up next to eachother and we were all banging on eachother’s doors begging to come in because we ALL had montazumas revenge…man, it was like the 12 man AND girl shit salute to the mexican food gods!