Hi I have been on Colomycin now for 4 weeks now and am very short of breath! my nurse says that it is not a side effect!! I have taken antibiotics and steroids as she says I may have chest infection, this has not helped. I am now taking carbocisteine to reieve anything needing to be coughed up, all to no avail! Has this happened to anyone else on Colomycin please
Angie
Hi angie26 I presume you mean that you are nebulising colomycin. I nebulised colomycin but had to stop it after a month because it made me wheezy and very short of breath. I think another member had similar. This can be a side effect with any nebulised antibiotic, depending on how you personally react to it. I do wish that nurses would listen to patients.
thanks for that, I am wheezy and short of breath and I wasn't before taking the colomyson! nurse says def. not side effect ! she says it could be my heart or anything (thanks a bunch)!!! Yes I am nebulising as I have psdueomonas I have rang her this afternoon and she tells me she will see me after 4 weeks and will get a letter out to me!
Angie
You need to see the doctor who prescribed this, not the nurse who obviously does not know what she is talking about. If the breathlessness and wheeziness has started since you began nebulising colomycin it needs to be stopped. The reaction is not safe. It means that the drug is irritating your bronchial tubes and lungs. Ring your consultant's secretary and tell them what is happening. They should get the consultant to tell you what to do or even to see you. Put your foot down. They are your lungs not the nurse's. If you wait another four weeks you might be in trouble.
OK thanks will do
I'm ok on colomycin but I know some people can't tolerate it, which is why they insist you have the first dose in hospital, in case your airways react badly! So imo your nurse is talking out of her bottom. Paragraph 4 of the Patient Information Leaflet states "Side effects of inhaling colomycin - a feeling of tightness in the chest due to narrowing of the airways" medicines.org.uk/emc/medici...
Thanks, yes I read the leaflet but Nurse said she'd write to me with an appointment to discus OTHER issues, she just will not listen!! got appointment with doctor this morning
Angie
Doctor said to come off Colomycin for a week and he will ring me next Friday to see if my breathing has settled and if that is the case they will have to re think my meds!
Angie
Hi Angie, bronchospasm is listed as one of the possible side effects of Colomycin. I've taken Colomycin for a long time, over different periods of my illness. During 2014, I took it for nine months and was absolutely adamant that it was making me breathless and unwell. I had many disputes with my consultant about it and eventually I stopped taking it.
In 2015, I stopped taking Colomycin and in the first nine months of the year, I had Moraxella, Aspergillis, Candida and finally Pseudomonas, show up in my sputum. I went back on Colomycin and oral Ciproxin for a month and Pseudomonas hasn't shown up since. But then I got a really awful bug called Achromabacter, that took six months to get rid of. At that stage , I was more then happy to go back on Colomycin and have been on it since.
I now neb one of the little bottles twice daily and neb Ventolin beforehand to cut down on possible bronchospasm.
I used to do two bottles twice daily and that dose seemed to give me problems. By cutting that dose in half and adding in the Ventilin, I can now take it without any problems.
It's a question of weighing up the risks/ side effects against the result of suppressing the pseudomonas. If it turns out that you absolutely can't tolerate it then look for an alternative but if you can tolerate it, stick with it.
gosh that's awful. I am using the little bottles twice daily and the ventolin beforehand. Surely there must be something else they can give! I just can't bear the constant wheeziness and breathlessness. I'm not sure what the outcome will be if I cannot take the colomycin, will wait to see what this week brings!
only been off the Colomycin a day and already the wheeziness and SOB have gone. does anyone take a different med for psuedomonas? not looking forward to telling the nurse I am off the meds!!
Hi Angie, on my December hospital admission, I was making what I thought was slow but steady progress and after a week the registrar asked me to go back on Colomycin. I hadn't taken it that admission because I hadn't used it with Meropenem before and was a bit apprehensive. So, long story short, I started on Colo on Wednesday night and by Friday, it was back to full on sob.i was taken off it with any apologies and after 36 hours was back on track.
So even if you've used it for a long time, it can still cause sob in certain circumstances and if mixed with certain other drugs.
I have been started on Tobermycin as I cannot take Colomycin. I have had only 3 tries at the Tobermycin and it's irritating my throat and have to stop every few seconds, that did not happen whenI did the trial!! don't know where to go now!
i started colomycin 4 months ago after 1 week breathless on exertion so stopped it ended up in hospital iv antibiotics etc ,had exacerbation of bronchicetasis .Discharged home again to try colomycin again was fine for 1 month then started getting breathless again yesterday going to try ventolin pre administration ,if no improvement with stop colomycin to see if my breathing improves i am also an asthmatic .i can understand where you come from
Pseudomonas infection
Bronchiectasis and Infections
Lobectomy for bronchiectasis 
