Cipro Questions

[colleen10]

Hi everyone,

A few months ago - right after the threat of Anthrax - my dad had a very minor in office surgery done. He was given Cipro as an anti biotic.

Just last night, graceful me, :chuckle stepped on a rusty nail. I went to my doctors today to get a tetnus shot and was given Cipro as an anti biotic treatment.

My question is this, I thought there was a lot of concern about there NOT being ENOUGH Cipro in the case of an Anthrax threat. So why is it being prescribed for use as a basic anti biotic? Is the threat of not having enough over, or has Cipro always been used in the manner described in the above situations. Or, perhaps the type you get for everyday anti biotic treatment is different than what they give out for Anthrax?

I am not an RN ( only taking pre-req's) and the purpose of this post is not to panic. It's just that the media has really played up Cipro and I just thought it was odd that now I see it used a lot.

Seems like there are a lot of other anti biotics out there and just thought it was interesting that Cipro was used.

If you have insights or know anything about Cipro usage, would like to hear them.

Thanks,

Colleen

[Fgr8Out]

Hi Colleen!

I didn't take the media to mean there was a shortage of Cipro, rather, that people were requesting Cipro "just in case". The issue being folks taking antibiotics prophylactically when there wasn't a specific need for them. This, of course, could lead to the inappropriate use of the antibiotic for organisms Cipro isn't designed to treat.... possibly creating a situation where resistant strains of organisms could result.

At least, that was the impression I received from all the news hoopla. :)

[Agnus]

Cipro is NOT the only antibiotic that is used to treat anthrax. It hit the media because the manufacturer of Cipro saw fit to get sepcific certification for anthrax. It's like an allergy med commercial. "My antihistamine was not certified for both indoor and outdoor allergies. So, I changed to bla bla."

Your body doesn't know or care wether the allergen came from in doors or out. The drug can't tell the difference either. It is just that this drug company sought and got certification that said it could be used for "indoor and out door allergies."

It does not mean that other allergy medicines do not treat both just as well. It just means they asked for approval to put it on thier lable.

If there was the anthrax epidemic that we had anticipated, and everyone needed to be put on Cipro, we would have had a very serious problem. We did have enough to more than handle unsual and ordinary need. Manufacturing was stepped up during the time of the scare. So, I'm guessing that it is even possible that we have more than we can even use right now. But that is not why you were put on it. You were given it because it is an appropriate broad spectrum antibiotic. Tetnus is a simular to anthrax in that they are both spore forming, anerobic, soil born pathogens.

Antrax is effective treated with penicillin, tetracycline, or Ethromycin.

Certification to treat specific illnesses or conditions is mostly (in these cases at least) a marketing device that drug companies use.

[armyrn]

any of the quinolones are good for anthrax. levoquin actually may be more effective than ciprofloxin. unless "they" are smart enough to develop multi-drug resistant anthrax, in which case all bets are off.

[colleen10]

Agnus,

Thanks for your response. When the media was playing up Cipro, I never heard that there were other anti biotics that would work just as well. They kind of made it sound like Cipro was the only thing that would work.

Thanks for your insight.