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What Causes Difficulty Walking After Having Bactrim DS?

Posted on Fri, 7 Nov 2014

Question: My dad was prescribed Bactrim DS for 30 days a tablet every day. Ever since he started on it, a couple of days later he started feeling difficulty to get up from the seat. Now he is not able to walk. He is a patient of cancer GBM but was XXXXXXX and not so weak, but after Bactrim he has become weak. The doctor prescribed him Bactrim to clear an infection( there was nothing clinical but used it as a precaution, that was bad). Now my dad is a lot lot weak and is not able to walk. Its only now that we realise it could be bactrim. His recent MRI is also clean. Can you please help?

Answered by Dr. V. N. S. Parinam (40 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Sodium levels in the blood

Detailed Answer:
Bactrim is relatively safe drug for the infection. I am not sure if the bactrim could have caused this new symptoms for your dad. However my suggestion is to look for alternates by speaking to the same doctor. The doctor should be able to instill confidence in the family.

I suggest to check for sodium levels which might contribute to weakness in a cancer treatment patient. You should also accept the fact that post cancer therapy or on cancer therapy can cause weakness and dizziness a lot and this is the most contributing factor for the new symptoms.

You can seek another opinion from a different local doctor if you lose trust with the one now. Trust is very important for the family and patient during treatment.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj

Follow up: Dr. V. N. S. Parinam (6 minutes later)

His Sodium levels were good as per the latest report of blood about 5 days back and were good even then. He is not on chemo therapy or radiation. Those were done about a year back. There was no weakness until we started bactrim. The protocol he was on recently was an alternative practice. That had mainly detoxification done. It was DMSO,Chelation, Live Cells,Vitamin C all in IV and live cells as IM. How do we recieve the side effects of Bactrim?

Answered by Dr. V. N. S. Parinam (15 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
May stop bactrim and wait

Detailed Answer:
As I said Bactrim is relatively safe drug but I am not sure if the detoxification process would interact with Bactrim. There are no studies on this. Were the liver and kidney function assessed after detoxification? Did you inform the Oncologist about Detoxification?

There are not hard evidences about the safety of detoxification. At this time I am unable to comment largely on this issue.

Speaking to the doctor you may stop Bactrim for time being and gradually the doses wear off from the body and he should be back to normal if it is because of bactrim.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj

Follow up: Dr. V. N. S. Parinam (9 minutes later)

Bactrim stopped 15 days back. No bactrim now but he is growing weaker. I would get the onco opinion but is there a medication to wean off the side effects of bactrim?

Answered by Dr. V. N. S. Parinam (35 hours later)

Brief Answer:
bactrim ceases to act negatively

Detailed Answer:
Hi

Thank you for following.

Once stopped the drug stops it negative effects. It is not good to give one more drug to wean of the other when you are not sure whether the prior was causing it. In general there is no antidote for bactrim.

Wish you a good health.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Bhagyalaxmi Nalaparaju