Can Hamburgers Stop Flares?

I’ll be the first one to admit that there’s pretty much nothing good about having flares or having to take all of the antibiotics and other medications that I take. But, sometimes, in the craziness of it all, I just have to laugh at my circumstances—especially when there’s a hamburger on my bottle of Cefdinir, which I only acquired because of a flare…

After five days of an increased Prednisone dose the other week, I was starting to come out of the mud of depression and brain fog. I almost thought I was okay. My psychiatrist had me double my Wellbutrin to help what was left of the depression, and I was almost hoping that would be enough.

But then the PANDA bear grabbed me again.

When my tics start up, I feel like someone is taking control of my body. I feel like there’s some outside force enveloping me, forcing me to do the movements or make the noises. Sometimes, I can almost feel it on my skin, and that’s rather frightening.

It had been months since I’d had that sensation and since I’d ticked like I did one night this week. Clearly, I’d been exposed to something that my body was reacting to.

A couple of my doctors were highly suspicious that I’d caught Mycoplasma (walking Pneumonia), since it doesn’t respond to the Augmentin I take daily, so I got an Azithromycin Z-pack to treat it. I’d been holding off on starting it for a bit, hoping I could do without it, but when the tics came back and I wasn’t focusing again, I knew I had to do something.

I’m one of those kids who’s usually been classified as a “non-responder” to antibiotics, but given how bad my tics were and the lingering depression and anxiety, I figured it was worth a shot. Plus, I’d been having this weird shortness of breath and a cough, so it wasn’t totally crazy to suspect pneumonia.

To my astonishment, the day after my first dose of Azithromycin, something strange happened: I realized that I wasn’t ticking at all! By the second day, the cloud of despair that I get during flares was also gone. And I was even being productive!

Now that I’ve finished the Z-Pack, I’m doing umbelieveably well taking the hamburger Cefdinir instead of Augmentin XR, and Cefdinir kills Serratia marcescens. (For those of you who are new to my blog, that bacteria once infected my tonsils and probably caused a number of flares.) But since I’d been so depressed for several weeks recently, I hadn’t been cleaning my shower, and of course, there was a huge colony of Serratia growing in one of the corners. Yuck! I’m sure that didn’t help…

I'm 99% sure this was Serratia in my shower...
I’m 99% sure this pink blob in my shower was Serratia

But now, I’ve had someone else clean out the shower with Lysol (to limit my exposure), and I’ve been taking Cefdinir, and I’m doing wonderfully. In fact, I’ve had a few days of feeling 100% and completely symptom-free this week. I don’t know if it was the Azithromycin or the Cefdinir or the Serratia-free shower or all of the above, but no matter what it is, I’m glad for the relief.

Yet I never know how many good days I’m going to have before I flare, so I’m trying to savor and make the most of these good days while I can. I have a bad feeling I’m going to flare again, but I’d like to think it’s just an unfounded fear… Whatever the case, I’ll just keep living as much as I can in the middle of fighting off this crazy disease.

PANDAS is so difficult to go through, but I’ll just keep trying to laugh about the little things—like that silly hamburger—to make the journey more tolerable as I work to find the best treatments.

2 thoughts on “Can Hamburgers Stop Flares?

  1. …for you, Miss? :0}. I’d say that’s gonna be a yesssss!!!!

    As in…a super-large serving of the burger-giggles, AND of these days of 100%! Oh, yes, savor away! How delicious to live without the bear bearing down on you! Halleluliah!

    I am thrilled to hear of this great progress, and that you are staying on top of things so wisely…trusting your findings, getting help w shower cleaning, jumping onto the Z-pack when you did…all for positive effect! Bravo!

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