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Saturday, January 21, 2012

MDRPA to MDSPA

In July 2011, I was so bummed to be admitted to the hospital with very, very few antibiotic options to treat my PA. Basically I had colistin and sorta kinda beta-lactams (intermediate resistance). Not too fun.

Well, thanks to the amazing wisdom of Ms. Mandy - who is always giving me great ideas), I have been taking Chilated Magnesium every day since October.

And in clinic on Jan 12, for the first time in 3 years, my clinic took me off isolation because I no longer have multi-drug resistant PA. Meaning all 3 of my PA strains are susceptible to nearly all classes of antibiotics (one strain is resistant to one class).

Talk about amazing. Incredible. Truly, a God-send.



Here are some studies supporting this outcome (thank you to Mandy's blog for these references):



Proteomic analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa grown under magnesium limitation.



Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. tguina@u.washington.edu 


In this study, large-scale qualitative and quantitative proteomic technology was applied to the analysis of the opportunistic bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa grown under magnesium limitation, an environmental condition previously shown to induce expression of various virulence factors. For quantitative analysis, whole cell and membrane proteins were differentially labeled with isotope-coded affinity tag (ICAT) reagents and ICAT reagent-labeled peptides were separated by two-dimensional chromatography prior to analysis by electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) in an ion trap mass spectrometer (ITMS). To increase the number of protein identifications, gas-phase fractionation (GPF) in the m/z dimension was employed for analysis of ICAT peptides derived from whole cell extracts. The experiments confirmed expression of 1331 P. aeruginosa proteins of which 145 were differentially expressed upon limitation of magnesium. A number of conserved Gram-negative magnesium stress-response proteins involved in bacterial virulence were among the most abundant proteins induced in low magnesium. Comparative ICAT analysis of membrane versus whole cell protein indicated that growth of P. aeruginosa in low magnesium resulted in altered subcellular compartmentalization of large enzyme complexes such as ribosomes. This result was confirmed by 2-D PAGE analysis of P. aeruginosa outer membrane proteins. This study shows that large-scale quantitative proteomic technology can be successfully applied to the analysis of whole bacteria and to the discovery of functionally relevant biologic phenotypes. 


PMID: 12837596 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 

7 comments:

  1. I am developing the same resistances. What dose are you taking? Do you take it with meals? I am very interested to start taking this.

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  2. I am taking 400mg of the Chilated Magnesium. I take it with meals & enzymes to ensure good digestion, but make sure not to take it with some oral abx. Read your abx PI's for the most accurate info. :) Keep me posted on how you do!

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  3. I have gotten the OK from my MD to take the Chilated Mag. I have one more question, just to be on the safe side and to minimize variables. What is the brand you are taking? Since the supplements in the US are not regulated, I figure this is a good question. Thanks, again.

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  4. Full disclosure - after 4 consecutive sputum cultures with non MDRPA, my sputum culture in the hospital came back with MDRPA. So take that with a grain of salt...but of course I'll keep you guys updated :) Also, I realize that I'm not taking the idea dose - I've been taking 400mg and I should ideally take 800mg, so I'll up my dose. My brand is Bluebonnet - I bought it at a local pharmacy called Pharmaca. Hope that helps

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    1. Thanks! That helps. Even thought MDRPA showed up again, it still shows that it might be helping. From what I understand, sometimes the cultures will test positive, sometimes negative. Four in a row is a pretty good step, though. Also, it's a good day today. VX-770 was FDA approved! Here's hoping that the 809 and 770 trials continue to go well!

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  5. I agree - I really do believe that Magnesium was doing something. My Cyster Mandy is an amazingly smart woman and showed me this information. Keep me posted on how things go with you.

    But I agree that 4 months of non MDRPA is awesome - haven't had that in 10+ years. I don't think it's a coincidence.

    PS I think VX-661 is the holy grail. I'm not betting on 809 http://www.vrtx.com/current-projects/drug-candidates/pipeline.html

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  6. Here's an update about taking 500mg of chelated magnesium. I have been taking it since around February. I was resistant with one strand and intermediate with another strand of PA with Cipro. My last culture and a few cultures before showed that I am susceptible with one, and intermediate with another. My last PFT's were down, but not enough to warrant IVs, so my doctor and I decided to add Cipro to my normal 28 day rotation of Cayston (I rotate Cayston and Colisten every 28 days). I don't know if it was the combination of the two, but 3 weeks later (I was on Cipro for 14 days) my PFT's were better than they were after my last round of IV's. Seems the Cipro is working again. It's so nice to have another oral antibiotic again so I don't have to only do IVs.

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