Throughout this blog, you've read over and over about the prescription antifungal medications and how they are to your program to overcome yeast-related problems.
The systemic azole drugs are the gold standard of treatment for fungal problems, and especially for the treatment of Candida albicans overgrowth. They are:
- Diflucan (fluconazole)
- Nizoral (ketoconazole)
- Sporanox (itraconazole)
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In addition, nystatin has proven its worth as an antifungal for 50 years and so has another lesser-known azole, miconazole. Miconazole is the active ingredient in Monistat, the cream used to treat vaginal yeast infections. Miconazole is also helpful when taken internally in capsule form, but it's not available in the United States in the form needed for systemic treatment.
In this post, we'll look at the prescription antifungals, their benefits and their side effects.
Before I go too far, I want to caution you: These antifungals are prescription drugs for a reason. On rate occasions, there are very serious side effects associated with some of them. You absolutely should be under a doctor's supervision if you are taking any of them. While you may be able to find them on the internet from sources outside the United States that do not require a prescription, this could be very detrimental to your health.
The amount of time you'll need to take these drugs may vary. Many of my colleagues like to use them for four to six months, sometimes as long as a year. The minimum amount of time they're used is two months. Maintenance doses may be necessary for an indefinite period if symptoms keep reappearing.
THE AZOLES - NIZORAL, DIFLUCAN, SPORANOX
In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine almost a decade ago, the authors said that all three of the azole drugs are active against Candida albicans. Here are excerpts:
The oral azole drugs represent a major advance in systemic antifungal therapies. Among the three, fluconazole has the most attractive pharmacologic profile ... However, ketoconazole is less expensive than fluconazole and itraconazole, an especially important consideration for patients receiving long-term therapy).
Diflucan (Fluconazole)
Diflucan is the most commonly used medication for short-term treatment of vaginitis and is the drug of choice for many physicians treating yeast overgrowth on a long-term basis. Taken in pill form, Diflucan works systemically to penetrate tissues infected with Candida organisms.
It's been widely used in Europe for about 20 years, and available in the United States since the early 1990s. It has been used in 57 countries, and 9 million women have used it for vaginal yeast infections. Initially, Diflucan was licensed for use by AIDS and cancer patients who were severely immunocompromised, but in 1993 it was approved for use in treating vaginitis.
During the past decade, many of my colleagues have told me they consider Diflucan an effective and safe medication that can be given for many weeks, months or even years.
Pfizer, the company that manufactures Diflucan, has noted a variety of side effects with the drug: The most common side effects are headaches (in 13% who took it in a clinical trial), nausea (7%), vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea. There have also been reports of reversible hair loss.
Pfizer warns: The most serious, but rare, potential side effect of Diflucan is liver toxicity. Symptoms of liver toxicity are unusual fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, jaundice, dark urine or pale stools.
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The down side of Diflucan, like many antifungals, is its cost, somewhere around $7 a pill. It's available in 100-, 150- and 200-mg. doses and while most doctors prefer 600 mg. a day or more at the outset of treating yeast overgrowth, once the overgrowth is under control, dosages can usually taper off to a maintenance dose as low as one pill a week. Most insurance companies cover Diflucan.
Free supplies of Diflucan may be available from Pfizer for those who have extremely limited financial resources and no insurance. To obtain further information, have your physician call Roerig Division, Pfizer, Inc., (800) 869-9979. To find out more, you can check out Cures For Yeast Infections.