When to start Antibiotics when get bad cold when on W and Wait

[Marchmouse]

I have been on Watch and Wait for over 6 years and my lymphocyte count went up amrkedly after a very bad cold in December. After 2 weeks I was given antibiotics. 2 weeks ago I got possibly same infection back with now just bronchitis. I have been expecting it to go away but not yet.

Should I not take antibiotics, have them ready, for this or next flu episode. My only source of advice is GP but I have had zero CLL contact since put on W&W. Other health conditions have been more on my mind.

Lymphocyes 21.3 , 30% increase in last year

[Senecio]

As you know, colds and 'flu are virus diseases, and antibiotics do nothing to viruses. After the initial infection, you might develop a secondary infection (such as pneumonia), which itself might be caused by virus or bacteria. If you have a test which shows the secondary infection is bacterial, that is the time to have antibiotics.

It is not a good idea to have antibiotics 'just in case', because that increases the chance that the bacteria living inside you normally (without causing disease) can develop resistance, and that resistance can be passed on to any future infectious bacteria, which would then render future antibiotics treatments ineffective.

Antibiotics also mess up your gut flora, and make IBS and other gut problems more likely.

[Marchmouse in reply to Senecio]

In generla GP in UKs do not do tests for these colds. Either no, or suck it and see! I think many other countries do infection test, or other GPs perhaps.

[Vlaminck in reply to Marchmouse]

I have never in my long life in the US had tests when I was just "under the weather" with routine cold like viruses (respiratory congestion and/or coughing and/or feel like crap, no bad fever if any fever). And my pattern has been to wait three week with this stuff (again, with no high fever) before going to doc as most go away within that time (unless some other serious problem develops).

[stevesmith1964]

Antibiotics don't work against Flu or Colds as they are virus's. An antiviral would be more useful.

[CaptRon1976]

agree with above comments. Abx will not help viral bronchitis, however depending on duration and severity of bronchitic cough your presumed viral bronchitis can be supplanted by bacterial pulmonary infection.

If you are producing anything beyond clear or white phloem a sputum culture testing for virus v bacteria would be helpful in differentiating cause of bronchitis. If you have bacterial bronchitis then pneumococcal pneumonia can become very serious quickly.

[skipro]

As a physician, and a CLL patient with multiple infections and on CLL treatment following a relapse of CLL, I've had a ton of experience.

As you probably know, its challenging to know if the infection is bacterial or viral which determines which type of antimicrobial would be best.

On FCR and neutropenia for a year, I ended up on 4 antimicrobials to prevent life threatening infections.

As expected, subsequent infections were resistant to a ton of options for treatment. So I have to get cultures for things and one was a bizarre fungus in my sinuses, ear and skull that required 2 months of an anti-fungal that cost $20K.

The biggest help came when a nurse at a facility that I sought a second opinion from suggested checking IgG levels. These were very low, and I was started on IvIgG. Since then, the only infections in 5 years have been a couple of tooth abcesses.

Have you had your IgG checked. I strongly suggest that you do and if you need it, IgG could be a game changer.

God bless.

Snowshoe