I came back to Seattle on July 19 and I am still ill with stomach problems from India.
In early August I went to the hospital on the advice of some clinic worker and had cultures done. They forwarded the test results to a clinic, and there I got a primary care doctor and through her, the prescription for a ten-day course of metronidazole. I took the pills as described, got better after two days, and then ten days later (two days after the pills ran out) I began to revert to my old condition. I have had Delhi Belly ever since.
I went to the doctor again two weeks ago and she told me I had AIDS because that was the most plausible reason to her for bacteria coming back. I told her she was crazy but I figured I would get tested anyway. She also did another culture.
I went back last week and she told me I was “normal,” which always makes me mad. The doctors are really quick to talk about getting tested for AIDS but when I go for results, instead of saying outright “No, you don’t have AIDS” they say “You’re normal” and I have to probe to see if they remembered about the AIDS test. She also told me that the culture was not done, apparently because of a five day weekend due to Labor Day (the weekend, Labor Day, then the days before and after those three). I asked for antibiotics and she gave me the same dosage for a seven day run.
My thinking is that the ten day run killed everything that could not survive a ten-day run, so a seven-day run would not have a meaningful effect. When my culture comes back positive and she gives me another ten days of antibiotics I will stack the seven and ten together. This was so much easier in India when I could just go to the pharmacy and get what I wanted.