Took my first pill this morning! = )

[torontogirl]

So I saw the doctor again yesterday and he prescribed Minocycline to me. I don’t think he has a great deal of experience as I had to tell him the dosage and frequency I wanted, but he was willing to help. I am taking 100 mg twice a day (for diffuse scleroderma). He is also willing to prescribe IV Clindamycin, but we are waiting on that. I took my first Minocin capsule this morning and had no side effects from it so I will go ahead and take the second one this evening. (I know some people work their way up to this dosage slowly.) I had a few questions that I hope someone will be able to answer.

1) Is a particular probiotic or type of probiotic better than others? I am taking 2 capsules a day of Natural Factors brand Women’s Multi Probiotic. Any opinion on this brand or another one to suggest?

2) How do you or your doctor monitor your response to treatment? I know that this type of therapy is slow and subtle, but there must be some sort of way of assessing progress. Is it all based on symptoms or do you monitor blood results too? I have recent blood results that show a high positive ANA, but my inflammatory markers were low/normal and my Rheumatoid Factor was also negative this time around. (It had previously been positive.) I’m a bit puzzled as to what that means and whether we will use ANA, RF, ESR, etc. to monitor my condition or not.

3) Has IV Clindamycin made a big difference to you?

Thanks so much for all your advice and encouraging words when I posted before!

Torontogirl

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