Are we on the right track of treatment for my mother?

Question

Hi doctor,

My mother is 60 years old. She has a history of high blood pressure. For the past two months, she has been having some pain in the stomach, which then shifted to her back. During diagnosis, increased pus cells were found. After taking treatment for a month, the pain still continued in the stomach as well as in the back.

Then, we moved to the orthopedic surgeon. There he found that ESR has raised to 80 mm and prescribed the medicine accordingly. After taking those medicines for a month, the ESR has only reduced to 65 mm. My query is whether we are on the right track and if this recovery is sufficient I am attaching the latest laboratory reports and medicine prescription.

Kindly help.

Answer 1

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I think we are monitoring the wrong thing. ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate) is not a very good indicator for monitoring as it rises fast and comes down very slowly maybe four to six weeks even after the resolution of the infection. I believe she had a urinary tract infection. Was the urine culture done?

As she is better after antibiotics, she is recovering. But, the best way out is repeating her urine routine and culture. If the infection is still persisting, then we need to continue a longer course of antibiotics and seek an opinion from a gynecologist regarding the source of the infection.

Thank you.