Has anyone here had the pleasure of having to take the antibiotic Gentamicin for an infection ?
Having had to take it for 9 weeks a couple of months ago, I now have one of the side effects of it and that is a loss of balance. Apparently there is no cure for it and you just have to live with it.
I now am taking balance therapy and hopefully that will help somewhat.
I would like to hear from anyone who has taken this antibiotic and what they did to diminish the side effects of it.
I have not had to take gent myself but have administered it to many of my patients. It seems that some people are very "responsive" to it's unwanted effects on the inner ear which causes balance problems. Here is the good news...if you consider balance problems good news....usually most people have balance problems rather than deafness..more easily said... your symptom is the lesser and usually will go away in time.
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Loss of balance can be associated with not just long term gentamicin therapy, but also even just 3-5 days. An unfortunate risk of the risk vs benefit of a useful antibiotic. Unfortunately all drugs are foreign substances and come with risks. I am sorry to hear of your loss of balance, but glad you are seeking medical help and pursuing therapy. There is a website for people afflicted with this side effect: www.wobblers.com if you would be interested.
Thanks for the replies. So far the only problem I have from it is balance. I did get weekly blood tests while taking it to check kidney function and have no other symptoms......yet....!! I have been off of it for almost 2 months now but still have to take an oral antibiotic twice a day for the rest of my life apparently.
My wife says it effected my hearing also...but you know wives..)
I was down to around 15 prescriptions, now back up to 21. I have ten specialists I have to see and each gets a typed page with my current prescriptions, any meds I have quit in the last 6 months, meds I am allergic to AND the antibiotics I have had in the last 3 years. Small fonts.
I list any type of steroid in red and most recent changes in yellow. They get the dosage, dr. name and phone number. I learned the hard way.
I read the side effects of Cipro in 1999 and it said one side effect could be death. (I think that was Cipro) My PSA went from around .5
to around 8 in a year, so they did a necessary biopsy. I forget how many of the Cipro I took, but I did not get any of the side effects.
BTW, the doctor I consider the BEST in his profession on the coast and maybe in the USA made a mistake yesterday. Or his office did anyway, they prescribed an antibiotic I am allergic to. Walgreen's caught it before I did. I was too sick to answer the phone when this doctor called or it would not have happened. Even the best can make a mistake. It is up to the pharmacist and us to cross check our meds.
(Please don't take that as any form of criticism in your case. You had no way of knowing, but I bet you make sure you don't get that med again. That said, if we have a choice of death or taking a medication with known bad results for us, I would take the medication again I guess.)
For the type of infection I had, Gentamicin was the only one that could fight it..(at least that's what the Dr. said) My balance therapy is going well and my balance has already improved. Now I am on 2 oral antibiotic pills a day and the infection is gone..according to my last blood test.
exfuzz02 wrote: For the type of infection I had, Gentamicin was the only one that could fight it..(at least that's what the Dr. said) My balance therapy is going well and my balance has already improved. Now I am on 2 oral antibiotic pills a day and the infection is gone..according to my last blood test.
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