chronic lung disease &/or infections

[TommysDad]

For those of you who have trached children with chronic lung disease &/or trach infections, do your doctors retest after a round of antibiotics to make sure they killed all (or most of) those super-strong bugs that are highly resitant to antibiotics, or do they order chest x-rays before or after??? How do your doctors handle this?

~Maggie

[drct1245]

Hey Maggie,
We have never re-tested after a round of ABs unless we thought there was something still brewing. Sometimes it's coincidence that we had to go back in for something and then we re-tested.
hope that helps

[Alex's mom]

If the antibiotics were for an illness that dd was not hospitalized for, then we have never retested. We sometimes don't even test at the beginning of the illness. We just go w/an antibiotic.

[JWorthington]

Sam is on prophylactic ab's all the time, but we test if his sick. Have never retested though.

Juliex

[lac]

We also are never re-tested after the abx. A chest xray is sometimes done prior to the doctor prescribing the abx but sometimes they just give it to us depending on how he sounds?

For example if junky the abx is usually prescribed, if wheezing with it then an automatic dose of steroids. If breath sounds indicate no air passing through or dull an exray is taken.

[hcs_mom]

The only time we've ever retested was for MRSA (the 3 negatives to get the contact isolation lifted) and for the suspected E Coli colonization when Hannah was super little (exposed in NICU and could NOT get rid of that junk).

The only time we've ever repeated chest x-rays is when she is inpatient. Otherwise we treat and move on. But she is sick so much, it's really like getting retested anyway!:rolleyes:

Jennie

[TommysDad]

Just wanted to update everyone...

The DID reculture Tommy after having 14 days of antibiotics and giving his body some time off of the antibiotics. He does still have his same lung infection, and the pulmonolgist found out his infection is now resistent to the antibiotic they were using to try to treat the infection! So, it's a good thing I did request they reculture him. We hesitated to treat him with anything because there were no increased number of white blood cells. So, we were kind of thinking it's just colonized, but he still wasn't really back to his base line, and pulmonologist would still like to treat. Don't want that darn germ to get any stronger and become more resistent to another antibiotic again! After just two doses of his new antibiotic, he's back to himself! Thank goodness! Now I feel like we can contiue on with our plans to attend the trach conference! He'll have been on his antibiotics for a complete week before we get there and still on them for days to come once we return. So we shouldn't have to worry about him spreading any germs or picking up any new ones while we are there:hooray: We can't wait to meet everyone who's going to be there!!! We're so excited!!!:woohoo:
~Maggie