Take my breath away

On Saturday, I believed that the trail was kicking my ass because I'm out of shape, or because I'm anemic and haven't been on top of my iron intake, or because I didn't eat that day. Well, it was probably a little of all of that, but it was also probably due to Alinia.

I'm on Alinia to treat my resistant clostridium difficile, which is a bacterium that lives in a lot of people's digestive tracts, but severely affects a very small (but growing) percentage of the population. It's amazingly tenacious in those individuals. I'm part of an exclusive set of people who are paving the way for treatment of this affliction, because doctors are throwing treatments at us and seeing what sticks. Alinia, which has previously been used to treat patients with cryptosporidium, is what worked for me last time. We'd tried a very long course of Vancomycin - I mean, thousands of dollars worth (thank God for health insurance) which worked briefly but then stopped working. Then the doctor put me on a 9 day course of Alinia, which worked like a charm and I was fine for a long while. Then I started having symptoms again a few months ago.

So, the doc has me on Alinia again... and I have been on it for 5 days with 4 to go. The problem is, I have noticed fatigue, dizziness, and an inability to draw deep breaths. Initially, I chalked it up to the reasons I listed in the first paragraph. I was out on trail in the heat, carrying a backpack, and I am not used to a lot of activity. But then in the last few days, I realized I am having trouble drawing a deep breath even while at a resting state. My fatigue is greater than can be explained from my level of activity, and I am back on the right amount of iron and eating properly.

I called the I.D. doc who put me on the stuff, and he told me that Alinia hasn't really been tested in courses of longer than 3 days. He said it's always possible that there is another reason for the shortness of breath etc, but that I should see my Internal Medicine doc to discuss it. He and I are both reluctant to take me off of the medicine if doing so will allow the c. diff to rally, especially since we don't really have a next step to try. So I made an appointment with my Internal Medicine doc for tomorrow afternoon, and I'm to keep an eye on my symptoms in the meanwhile and go to the ER if things get bad.

Just as the icing on the cake, tomorrow morning I am scheduled for an interview for a position I really want at work. I have been waiting for this posting to open for a year, and I need to get it. Now I have to do the interview all wound up from this medication and feeling like crap. This is far from optimal, but I'm still determined to ace it.