arthritis and penicillin

[dlt58]

Can Penicillin VK (500mg) treat arthritis pain? Before you say, "no,"
please read further:

I had a back molar crack/fracture.  This tooth had a previous root canal so, while there was little pain directly from the tooth, an apparent infection set up.  The dentist prescribed Penn VK (500mg) to treat it for five days prior to pulling it and another course of five days after the extraction.  By the third day of the first course of Penn VK, my
previous rather painful arthritis (diagnosed as "osteoarthritis") in hands, neck, lower back, and hip all but disappeared. Even the redness in my swollen knuckles was reduced.  By the fifth day, I totally stopped all NSAIDS and required no Trammadol even though I stepped up my daily walking regimen.  However, within a few days of finishing the second course of Penn VK, the pain in all the areas came roaring back.  It is now worse than it has ever been.  Was the respite from arthritis pain during the Penn VK treatment a coincidence or did it actually treat the cause of the arthritis pain?

[txsilver]

Thanks for the insight!  I had not heard of this before but am very interested.  Where did you find this information?

[caregiver222]

The answer is this. Arthritis can have many etiologies.

It appears you have a problem that is related to a systemic bacterial infection.

Penicillin is fairly obsolete as an antibiotic. There are too many resistant strains of bacteria.

It is difficult to obtain sufficient concentrations of antibiotic to kill encapsulated infections in various parts of the body.

If you can get a physician to go along, try another regimin of antibiotics, but don't use penicillin. You will probably have to be on them for at least eight weeks, and most physicians would refuse to wrote script for that period of time. You run the risk of developing an anti-biotic resistant strain of bacteria.

I would try the "tripple-therapy" pills (three antibiotic) prescribed for helibactor pylori, and be prepared to take them for a minimum of four weeks.

[txsilver]

Interesting! We need to post a poll on this!

[gorbybelle]

I have body wide stiffness etc; possibly fibro. or  lyme  - lots of neck pain etc;  the couple of times I have taken penicillin for un-related health issues,  my other symptoms have much improved!!!  just as dlt58 describes.

[txsilver]

You'd have to ask a doctor to be sure, but a cursory search of the web did show there were some forms of arthritis that have been successfully treated with low doses of penicillin.  Lyme and Gonococcal were 2 I saw cited.