What can I do about constant internal infections?

[DeeG]

I have frequent bouts of infections of some sort or another. My Dr has checked my blood and the increased white blood cells she sees as being an indicator of my system 'continually carrying some sort of inflection'. It manifests itself as sinus, bladder or sore mouth problem or itchy swelling/rash. If I do have a flare up, I'm on antibiotics pretty quickly and for a time, it goes away! However, if I get a couple of inflections at the same time, as I did earlier this year, I have to have steriods and antibiotics to blast it!! When I say frequent inflections, I mean about every two weeks

The question is - is there anything else I, or my Dr. can do about this?

[Rach1977]

Oh dear, sorry to hear this. i also have a similar problem with my urine and increased white blood cells.

I have the same problem and was discussing with my mum that i feel my GP does not know what to do. When i was getting UTI after UTI they suggested putting me on a low does of Anti biotics for 6 months....has that been suggested to you?

Have you discussed Lupus with your Dr?I don't know too much about it, however i believe some are the symptoms are problems with your mouth, such as ulcers and rashes also.....good luck, let us know how you get on xx

[ldjboothby]

If you continually have to take antibiotics you will be destroying the good bacteria in your gut,you could try taking lactobacillus acdophilus every day ,these can be bought in most health food shops and chemists - some times they come in combination with bifidobacterium lactis and fructo-oligosaccharides.

[LindseyMid]

Has she referred you onto a consultant? And run a full blood screen? If not, she should do so.

It might be worth talking with her about whether the antibiotics (needed for the acute infections of course) might actually be worsening the long-term problem. Antibiotics can wipe out your natural probiotics and this leaves you vulnerable to other infections (in very ill people, this is recognised as a mechanism that causes some serious hospital infections). A well done stool sample test can check for this, but it depends on how they do this at your surgery and whether they check for probiotic levels as well as infections and parasites.

[wednesday_focker]

garlic is anti viral/bacterial/fungal so its always good to be taking a few garlic tablets when you have an infection, also high grade manukna honey works like antibiotic but your body doesnt build up the resistance, fungal infection, can cause higher white cells, and i bleive my fibro is causes by fungal gut infection, antibiotics wont help that much, infact it will make matters worse as has been said it will destroy the good bacteria and leave you worse still, what they need to do is get a urine test if its UTI, or swab if its ear/vaginal etc, see what bacteria it is and make sure that the infection you have is killed by the antibiotic you take, it might be that its just knocking it back a bit and not actually killing it off x