Quote:
Originally Posted by Grumble
...and then gives us doxy or mephloquin for malaria prevention. Also kills all the bacteria in your guy and gives you a year long case of mud-butt.
Yup, dumbass Flight Surgeon prescribed doxy for Malaria (Rwanda). Didn't say a damn thing about the whole gut thing. I had no warning whatsoever. You have to take Doxy for the entire time you are in the endemic area and continue taking it for a full 28 days (life cycle of the organism) after leaving the endemic area. In my case, it was a total of 46 days. About a week after I stopped taking it, the bloating started...
My issues lingered for 3 years: alternating random bouts of "no notice" diarrhea and painful constipation, GERD, countless nights of poor/no sleep, long term DNIF (with great skepticism heaped on me by the dumbass flight surgeons and the sq/cc), loss of flight pay... It was a nightmare. (FWIW, the dumbass Chief of Flight Med was a DO, not an MD). As a side note, I got him fired and censured by the VA Board of Medicine for violating my HIPPA rights
In addition, I also contracted H. Pylori as a result of the depleted "good bacteria". The dumbass flight surgeon's office never bothered to test me for H. Pylori. A nurse practitioner saw the light and had me tested.
I'd highly recommend dosing yourself with pro-biotics during and after any long term use of an anti-biotic like Doxy. I hope no one has to go through what I went through.