Dealing with common secondary effects of Ciclosporin

[matt.davis]

Hey all,

I'm a new member here! I received a BMT in August 2012 after having been diagnosed with AA. Everything had been going very well until recently when I started feeling nauseous and having intestinal cramps almost every day (which leads to spending much time in the bathroom). I've been taking ciclosporin for 6 months (since the transplant), I started with 200mg in the morning and again in the evening. Once every week or two, I'd experience intestinal cramps but I could live with it. In January my dose was lowered to 300mg/day (after they saw a problem with my kidneys). Then my doctors raised the dose up to 350mg/day at the start of February. Shortly after I started getting pretty severe nausea and diarrhea, and I've been experiencing this almost every day since. It's worse in the mornings, I was told it can be a pretty heavy drug to take on an empty stomach, but I can't eat very much in the mornings.

My question is, if people have been through the same thing, what can I eat before, or what medication could I take to help reduce these effects ? Yesterday my doctor prescribed 40mg of Pantoprazole daily, have people had success with this medication ?

Any information at all would be greatly appreciated,

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.

Matt

[Chirley]

Hi Matt, I have Barretts Oesophagus and I've been taking pantoprazole since 2001.

I had a Nissens Fundo in 2003 and stopped taking the drug for a few years. I then got oesophageal candida, was on Fluconazole for a year and the pantoprazole was restarted.

I went off it again for a couple of years but I started taking steroids and the stomach pain could be quite bad, so I was restarted on pantoprazole yet again.

My overall opinion...it's like magic...it works very, very, well and I have never had a side effect from it. I was told that you need to monitor Vitamin B12 levels when you take any of the PPI drugs.

Regards

Chirley

[matt.davis]

Thank you for your reply, and I'm sorry to hear you've been through all that, glad to hear the medication worked for getting rid of your stomach pain. I really hope Pantoprazole will be as useful in countering the effects of Ciclosporin as well.

[dfantle]

Matt, is it possible you're having some GVHD symptoms instead of a reaction to the cyclosporine?? I had my transplant just 5 weeks ago, and per symptoms my team is always asking me about, what you're describing can be the result of Graft vs Host as well. Suggest your team test for this...

Hope you feel better!!