Friday, July 17, 2009

A Tale of Three Doctors, a Nurse Practitioner and a Pissing Contest

Obviously, the family has lost any natural resistance to malaria over the last three years and there are two malaria prophylaxis drugs recommended for children of Kezia's age travelling to countries with malaria:

Malarone with side-effects: neutropenia, pancytopenia.

Mefloquine with side-effects: principally psychological (bad dreams etc, nothing haematological)

Kezia's consultant wrote to our GP practice in the UK requesting they prescibe Kezia with Mefloquine. Our family doctor here recommends that Kezia takes Mefloquine.

Jaime and Kezia have been taking various vaccines over the last couple of weeks. And the "Nurse Specialist in paediatric and adult vaccinations" insists that Kezia takes Malarone, that she hasn't prescribed Mefloquine in ten years, and won't, that she has much experience in malaria prophylaxis.

Has she experience in paedeatric oncology/haematology? Has she experience in paedeatric oncology/haematology in malarial zones?

My brother Pete is going to try and get through to the Doctor rather than the "Nurse Specialist" tomorrow and sort this out. Thanks bruv.

Afrox - you have a long way to go.

And Drs Crippen and Rant you will hear more from me on "Nurse Specialists".

2 comments:

Sue Rose, Co-DIrector said...

Mefloquine can have adverse affects on the blood and they can be severe. Please read the package insert on our website www.lariaminfo.org. It is not a safe drug for children or for adults as it has an adverse neuropsychiatric event rate of 30-42%. It has been shown to cause brain damage in animal studies (and in humans by clinical reports). Listen to the nurse!

Angus said...

Sue - don't I just know it ! I once took Lariam as a treatment dose and it was like a bad LSD trip!

But it is a toss up between two evils!

Malarone could cause a relapse in our daughter's leukaemia whilst the side-effects of Lariam are not blood/marrow-related.