Monday, August 4, 2014

Diary of a Crohn's Flare: Allergic Reaction to IV Antibiotics

It's been a while since I last posted.  Much has happened and I have to get caught up on entries before Monday 8/11 (you'll see why later).

After 3 days of IV antibiotics, I experienced a mild allergic reaction to the IV antibiotics (my chest and neck flushed red).  I didn't get hives, welts, or even feel itchy but it was enough that the on-call nurse told me to begin taking the IV Benadryl with each antibiotic infusion.

This modified my infusion in a couple of ways.  The IV Benadryl literally puts me to sleep for 2 hours after I get it.  So I gradually moved my IV antibiotics from 6pm back until 10 pm.  That way I could just go to bed afterwards.  With the Benadryl, I had no problems getting to sleep!

Also, instead of using the S.A.S.H (saline, antibiotic, saline, and then heparin) method, I had to add an additional saline & then Benadryl so the infusions were:

  1. Saline
  2. Benadryl
  3. Saline
  4. Antibiotic
  5. Saline
  6. Heparin
So now when I get antibiotics (especially IV antibiotics, they're predosing me with Benadryl).

2 comments:

  1. I'm reading 'bout your medical journey!

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  2. I wanted to get this documented before my surgery. I'm certain that I won't feel like writing many entries after surgery for several days.

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