Ever since Tepic, I’ve been sick. In Guanajuato, I started taking Flagyl, thinking my magical garlic (which has cured any number of woes, from parasites to blood infections) had let me down. I spent 8 days on Flagyl with absolutely no relief. Today, I found the Centro de Salud in Zacatecas (no mean feat in itself) and after a short wait was seen by a doctor who diagnosed Typhoid. I’m skeptical but for 30 pesos I got an exam, 20 capsules of Chloramphenicol (in Spanish it is Cloramfenicol) and 10 pills of butilhioscina for pain. I can’t find an English equivalent for the pain pill but the side effects seem to be reasonable. The Chloramphenicol side effects are scary, so I’m stopping that drug until I’m sure it is typhoid.
Tomorrow I will second guess the doctor by going to the lab and having blood and stool tests done and then I’ll know for sure if I need something stronger than Flagyl for these super-parasites (my guess) or something different (like Cipro) for the Typhoid. Apparently, you can just let typhoid go and within a month it will resolved with either death (only 10%) or not, but since I’ve had whatever this is for close to a month and am not relishing death, if this might be typhoid, I’ll go with Cipro.
While I was at the clinica, the kids and Jamie rode the teleferico to La Bufa and took many photos. We were going to a museum afterwards, but Sissy had such a tantrum that we decided to try another day.
If you’re bored to tears, I’m wondering whether or not having Typhoid conferrs immunity. I’m also wondering if the typhoid vaccine efficacy is better than 65% (which is what it was when I got my last vaccine in 1987). Feel free to comment with your results; I’m off to nap. Again.
Lastly, I’ve been terribly remiss in responding to email and comments. I’m getting there, slowly but surely.
4 responses so far ↓
1 John // Jul 19, 2006 at 9:01 pm
Kathy……Not being familiar, personally, with typhoid I can’t give any help. However, if there is ANYTHING you need from up here that I can assist with, do NOT hesitate to ask, call, email!!!!!! Not sure how much my daughter, who is a dentist, can help with getting a prescription for you, but it doesn’t hurt to ask her if you need me to do so. LET ME KNOW….
john
2 Dr. Chrissy // Jul 20, 2006 at 8:55 am
Hey Kitty - I’m so sorry to hear about your typhoid! Hang in there. Do you have a blinding headache too? When Chet & I got it (if indeed we had typhoid) in Africa in 1998, we used the cipro we’d brought with us and were better in about 5 days - but had horrible headaches and nausea. Our vaccinations were said to be only 60% effective. The doc we saw in Nairobi said that a typhoid diagnosis required multiple blood tests to confirm a trend in some blood marker. Let us know how you are! Lots of love & healing coming from sweltering CA - C
3 Dr Paul // Jul 20, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Hope you’re feeling better, Kit-kat.
love, dad
4 Neil McIver // Sep 9, 2006 at 3:19 am
Hope you don’t mind the intrusion. I spent the last 6 months in Ecuador and at one point after a couple days of 103-104 degree fever was told I also had typhoid due to a blood test.
But I’m not certain I actually had it. The test was the Widal test which net search shows is a test for typhoid anti-bodies, not the typhoid bacteria itself. It showed I had anti-bodies, but some more net searching cast doubts on the reliability of the 110 year old test in typhoid endemic areas.
What’s more, contrary to what you wrote concerning the white blood cell count (my main reason for writing) I was told typhoid makes the WBC go down, as you said your count did. My own WBC was high, which is one of the reasons I suspect I did not get it. Net searching now shows some conflict from medical sites on whether typhoid makes the WBC go up or down, though all the sites that say it goes down are also worded identically, making me think they all draw from the same source.
I took olive leaf extract as my general anti-biotic. I’ve got confidence that it works so if nothing else, it should be good for placebo effect. Maybe it had something to do with my relatively quick recovery. Or maybe not.
Anyway, found your site while searching. Hopefully you’re better by this writing, and enjoying your own adventuring. Thanks for sharing.
Neil
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