Hubby is on Vancomycin- can dosing too fast cause renal failure?

Hubby is on Vancomycin- can dosing too fast cause renal failure?Hes taking it for a staff infection in his foot. He also has rheumatoid arthritis and was on Enbrel prior to infection and antibiotic. Hes got high blood pressure. He was taking Toprol 50 mg a day and Avalide 150 mg a day for that. They changed his IV at home from 1 gram twice a day to 2 grams once a day. No one ever told him to infuse slower! So in the first 15 min he got extremely itchy and rash all over - redmans syndrome. About 8 hours later we took him to the ER because he had a fever of 102. Turns out he was in full renal failure. I read that blood pressure med plus vanco and serious injury or illness can cause renal faliure. What I want to know is because he infused to fast err on part of the Home Health agency, did that cause him to go into renal failure?

Posted by Fisher
Vancomycin can lead to renal failure if the levels get too high. His renal function should have been checked before starting vancomycin treatment. I assume the doses were adjusted to account for a change in his renal function. Infusing the vancomycin too fast would not lead to renal failure itself. Vancomycin could have contributed to the renal failure if his kidney function worsened for some reason causing the vancomycin level in his blood to elevate to high- (this would happen because his kidneys were not removing it from his blood as quickly as before, not from infusing it too fast. It would take a few doses to get it that high.) Then the extra high vancomycin blood levels could contribute.

There are some blood pressure medications that can cause decreased renal function. The ACE inhibitors like lisinopril, enalapril, etc can decrease kidney function which could lead to higher vancomycin levels, which could further contribut to the renal failure. This type of renal failure is usually reversible after the medications causing the failure are removed.

I hope that made sense- It sounded redundant to me but is is difficult to explain simply in a couple of paragraphs.

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