Aftermath symptoms and conditions

I took levaquin (750) for a bronchial infection about 9 months ago. My doctor gave me individual samples with no info. on any side effects. Like most people, I trusted my doctor and took the pills without question. The aftermath has been a complete nightmare as I have suffered severe joint pain, depression and an atypical anxiety that at times that feels like a drug induced brain fog. I've seen numerous specialist searching for an underlying process causing the symptoms but nothing is ever found. Since the beginning I've contended that the Levaquin was at the root of my problem, but no doctor has ever given that thought any consideration. Prior to the Levaquin I was perfectly fine with no history of any joint pains or mood disorders. Does anyone have any ideas on how to reverse or heal the process?

I know this is long, but I could really use your help, so I would appreciate you taking the time to read through to the end. (thanks :-) )

First, I want to thank everyone posting. I needed to read this stuff because I'm absolutely terrified of what's happening to me. I'm on the second week of my very first pack of Loestrin- my very first birth control pill EVER. I didn't want to start, but my OBGYN encouraged me to, once I told her I had 8 day long episodes of clots, cramping, vomiting and just sheer misery once a month. She said this would help if I'm sure to take it as recommended.

So I took the first one the Sunday after my period started, at 8:45am and have taken it religiously since. I have not changed my diet or routine. I exercise and eat fairly well. And there are no particularly stressful factors in my life. I am also quitting smoking- just down to 2-3 a day instead of 10 or 15.

Now that I've been doing this for 2 weeks, I think I would rather suffer what I had before. At least it was predictable! I have been bleeding for 5 days now. And this is NOT my time to be on my period. I'm sad and tired. I have back pain and on-and-off cramps. I have nearly no sex-drive. My boyfriend and I had sex at least 4 times a week and I masturbated on the nights we didn't. And although he is INCREDIBLY supportive, I can tell he feels lost and helpless around me. I don't want him to touch me, hold me, or even breathe on me! Normally, we are very affectionate and I am active and fun. Now, I just want to be left alone. I feel fat, unwanted, dirty, depressed...the list goes on.

I feel as though there is something seriously wrong with my body, because I shouldn't look or the feel the way I do or bleed like I am. I called the doctor and she said that I should give it till the end of the month. But 1 month is a long time to live with a depressed quality of life. 1 month is a long time to cry yourself to sleep with alcohol and Motrin.

I feel angry that the best the medical society can do is give us something that is trial and error, fully aware that it may hurt us, though temporarily, and make the lives of the people around us miserable. I am concerned the even my doc is in the pocket of some pharmaceutical company to give me a drug that she said would help and has only hurt.

Or maybe I'm just paranoid...

Anyone have any encouraging reasons why I should continue this? My sister, who was on Ortho for a while and DIDN'T like it, suggests that I stick out a little longer and I trust her opinion, but would like more. I'm open to suggestions or comments. (Especially if you know a way to stop my period so I spend less days of the month on it than I am on...)
Thanks :-)

OK, So me and my husband decided to get Mirena b/c we got married in 05, a year later had our daughter, and a year later had our son. I feel like for us, if left to our own discipline, will just keep having child after child after child. Seriously, for us, it doesn't take long to get pregnant. I sympathize greatly with women out there who long to have babies but can't, I do... but I am just not one of them. Both of my pregnancies were so pleasant! No morning sickness with either child, about only 20 lbs of healthy weight gain, etc. For me, being pregnant is a blast. However, the aftermath that pregnancy has on my body is not so pleasant. I can safely say that I will NEVER wear a bikini ever again and I'm surrounded by friends who "bounce back" so quickly and are in bikini's two months after having their baby. In 05, the year my husband and I got married, at age 22, I was hospitalized, put on life support and had liver damage. I was jaundice, and my liver enzymes were through the roof. My doctors almost put me on a donor list. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me but eventually concluded that I picked up a virus from a recent missions trip to Macedonia and that it would eventually flush itself out of my system. It did, to the glory of God. I get blood drawn yearly to check liver enzymes, and since I've been pregnant (thank God with healthy pregnancies and deliveries) I just figured I've been healthy. My husband has since graduated college and is starting a small business, and with a 2 year old and a 4 month old and the economy, we just DO NOT want more kids right now. Getting on Mirena seemed to be the best option for us. I read the pamphlet, asked around, and made my decision fairly quickly since my husband and I were already back at "it" 7 weeks after my son was born. Not smart, I know, but what can I say. I can say this: Mirena has not effected my sex drive. :) Insertion was not fun! I had bleeding for about 2 months, but my son was also exactly 8 weeks when I got it so my body wasn't exactly acting normally anyway. I heard to expect bleeding. No big deal. It eventually went away and now I've had it for about 3 months. The first couple weeks I was a BEAR! Has anyone seen the SNL skit for "Annuale," (or something like that)? That's exactly what I felt like. But that went away. My son is four months old and I feel like I am gaining a lot of weight. My husband and I picked up everything and moved across country for his job and that's been stressful, so I figured weight gain was due to that. I haven't had any depression or laziness, but I always feel exhausted. I figure it's from having a toddler and a newborn. I'm sure that's part of it. But I have a membership to Lifetime and I had a session with a trainer and they gave me a nutrition regimen and core exercises b/c my belly just doesn't seem to be going back down. I'm a petite person, but I have A LOT of body fat, since during my hospitalization I had severe muscle atrophy. This is not healthy! Mainly I don't want any more kids, at least for a while, b/c I want my health back! I want to be around for my kids! Lately I've been experiencing twinges and pains around where my liver is at and I can't seem to lose ANY weight. I feel like I'm only gaining. I know excess weight, especially in your core, carries with it a lot of health risks. I finally googled weight gain and liver side effects with Mirena and found this website. Reading all your posts I'm strongly considering getting Mirena taken out and making an appointment with an OB-GYN and a hepatologist (liver doctor) just to make sure everything is OK. I need to lose weight! But I really don't want to have any more kids! I'm afraid to get off of it. I'm afraid to stay on it. I don't know what to do. Any suggestions??

My daughter was on Yasmin for about a year approximately 3 years ago.She constantly felt ill and was always at her regular doctor with excruciating head aches, dizziness, respiratory problems, bladder infections, kidney infections etc etc.A battery of tests including CAT scans etc showed nothing.Then came the manic mood swings, depression, rage and severe panic anxiety attacks which grew worse over time.(We are talking about a former gymnast who lead her team to the State finals in H.S. and used to be cool, calm and collected tumbling on a 4inch wide balance beam 4 feet off the floor!) She finally stopped taking Yasmin after I spoke with a gynecologist I met during mutual sports activities our children shared. He told me to get my daughter off of Yasmin immediately. It took about 6 mos. before she was close to being back to normal. Taking Yasmin caused a number of issues for my daughter - some of which I believe she still deals with today in the aftermath of the effects of this drug. PLEASE if there is a class action lawsuit against these people for putting this out there, she DEFINITELY needs to be a part of it and retrieve some sort of compensation. Thank you!

I began taking lisinopril 8 years ago(age 26) when diagnosed with aortic insufficiency. I was in excellent health physically and mentally at the time and my heart condition was and still is very minimal. This drug has literally broken down my body and I have developed chronic conditions. The minor side effects were the fatigue, dizziness, and lethargic feeling. As time went on I developed stomach issues, insomnia, skin conditions, memory loss, mood imbalance, and low platelet production. I never questioned or linked any of this with something that was considered by doctors a safe drug. After much confusion and weariness it literally dawned on me! I stopped the drug with agreement from my cardiologist, and for the first time in many, many years I am coming back to life. As the days go by and the aftermath of this drug leave my system for good, I amazed as each of my health problems disappears. I am sleeping the whole night, thinking more lucidly, and enjoying a calm stomach. I take my health seriously and I sincerely advise anyone to avoid the slow death of lisinopril.

ilovetc007,

I agree with you, I don't have any kids, I'm 23 and have never suffered from anxiety attacks or chest pains and ever since on Mirena I have been feeling horrible. I feel tired all the time, can't sleep, panic attacks that have rushed me to the ER twice in the 6 weeks that I had the thing in me. I removed it today and will keep everyone posted on the aftermath

Hi all, I posted last week about all the terrible side effects I have been having while on Mirena, I finally got this thing taken out today after 6 weeks of total nightmares. I hope I can sleep tonight and will keep you posted on how the aftermath goes. So far so good.

My 10 year old son has taken Singulair on and off since he was 5 years old and has been on it for the past 3.5 years. My son at an early age was affected by a bad marriage and then the divorce when he was 5 yrs old. So we always suspected that his behavior issues were caused by this and I had done everything I possibly could to give them the help he needed to get over and through his issues. He was held back his first year of Kindergarden and during his second year midstream he was placed in a special class for behavioral problem children. Nothing ever seemed to help him, everytime we would see some progress and encouragement we were always blind sighted by a behavior that was always worse. Two steps forward and them 5 steps backwards. I always knew that his problems would never get better overnight so I just kept on going. He was diagnosed with ADHD but because he has some ticking issues I had to put him on Strattera which was did not do a thing for him. I always described him as my Dr. Jeckyll/ Mr. Hyde child. He could be really good and sit still and behave but I think he had to try really hard to do so. He eventually was always overpower by the impulse to show negative behaviors. Defiant, extremely impulsive, always negative and completely miserable all the time. He also went through phases of compulsions. There was always a compulsion of the month- germs, bathroom habits, noises, repetitive words. He hated school and always complained of a stomach ache which i thought he was always faking to get out of school. He had confrontations in school everyday for most of the day. I often thought some of this was because of being tired all the time. We had battled over bedtime every single night. He was terrified to go to bed alone, I tried everything to get him to sleep alone. I wore myself out falling asleep next to him, I would then go to my own bed only to be up with him half the night going back and forth. I gave in many a night and slept with him just so we could get a good nights sleep. At age 8.5 I finally got him to go to sleep alone but the lights haf to be on and he has to know that I am still awake before he will fall asleep. He would always say he didn't want to go to sleep because when he does he has bad thoughts about me and people that he loves. He always had an extremely hard time excepting the word "no"- he would flip out and hit his head with whatever was handy, throw things, break things, scream holler etc. It would take hours to get over it. When he did he would be very remorseful and lovable. He was always in turmoil. Finally in February of this year, this graduated to a new level where he would want to just kill himself and would actually go and pull a knife out of the drawer and just shake with anger as he held the knife to his throat. I was terrified although i really didn't think he was going to harm himself he just wanted to scare me. Then at the end of March when i first heard the news about the possible side effects of Singulair, I had only heard about the suicide effect. Oh great just what I needed was this medicine causing him to do that. The doctor was thinking about taking him off if this summer because he wanted to see if he out grew his seasonal allergies so I took him off immediately. Well I had no idea about the other side effects until my son turned into a completely different kid. School noticed a huge difference in him! His grades went up, his is able to control his behavior, he is happy he is NORMAL. I never suspected this drug as the culprit due to the timing of taking it. Our lives have changed completely. When i first found this site, it seemed as though some of the parents were writing about my child. It is amazing. My son still has some old habits to break but overall he is a wonderful and normal 10 year old boy. He did not outgrow his seasonal allergies but Allegra seems to help in through it. I get so angry- his whole early childhood was ruined by this medicine. He is a labled kid in our school system. This whole experience has opened up my eyes. Thank you for letting me share my story.

My son, now 10...has been on singular off and on, since I don't' know how long...today was the second time he was intentionally hurting his cat. He has told me time and time again about visions while he was awake, violent ones, he argues with anyone and everyone. He has no friends at school. Last year I took him off all his medications to see why his behavior was so drastic, he got so calm, it was like a new boy, but then when he started back to public school...he had to be put back on them again, and again with the singular...
If it was not for this site..I would think my son was sick mentally. But after this...he will see his doctor tomorrow and no more singular...
When I took him off all the meds I told his doctor I was really worried about his behavior and they said it will be okay...he went right back to just out of control. Could not sleep, concentrate at school or at home. He is so smart and he is failing school..not because he is slow, but they kept saying he was add...but when I home schooled him and took him off his meds...he was so great, obdient..not perfect by no means, but just a normal boy...
I hear him right now, in the other room, fighting imaginary people...he seems to go go go..and with no sleep...the dreams in the day time I just thought were his imagination...but now that i hear about other children like him...they are to him real..just like he tells me..he also always tells me how mad he stays..he says all the time I am just angry mom, and I would say at what..he just says everything...
Thank God for this site....now i know..it is not in his head, it is just like I told his doctor...it is his medication..now I know just the one it is..
THank you all..
God Bless all the others here suffering with the same problems...it is just shocking that we as parents and patients, even after telling the doctors, are right...I feel vindicated...I will be printing this off and taking it with us to the doctors...

I'm a 22 year old who was diagnosed with dermatologists a couple months ago. I've been on different doses of steroids ranging from 5mg to 60mg for 5 months now. i was on 60mg the longest and just went down to 40mg. i go down to 30 mg next month. so far my side effects are moon face, swollen areas around my neck and collar bone, weight gain like 15 lbs, always have to wake up in the middle of the night and pee, my knees get shooting pains sometimes at night, light hair by my ears like sideburns, tired, helps with my muscle weakness a little, my eyesight seems blurry sometimes, chest always feels tight. I'm also on Methotrexate, Bactrim, folic acid, and Fosamax. it might be a reaction form all these but i think its mainly from the Prednisone. i cant wait to get down to the lower doses. i look like a different person and even tho all my family and friends know its still embarrassing. i fell like a whole different person. i cant wait to be normal again.

took one dose of avelox at 830pm yesterday and then took one dose of hydrocodone for cough at 1100pm. Woke up 2 hours later with ankle & wrist joint pain, swollen flushed face and upper extremeities, completely bloodshot eyes(no visible whites), fever, chills, neck stiffness, itching on neck,shoulders and arms, general body aches, overall joint stiffness. saw doc today and he said conjunctivitis-prescribed drops, and that it was just the infection I had running it's course. Now my husband does not want me to take this evenings dose. perplexed as I have some underlying connective tissue disease and I am not sure if the joint stuff and redness is just due to being out in the sun yesterday without sunscreen and the aftermath

Aug. 7th 2007, I have my iud in about 1 year didnt like it and had it taken out . it has been a night mare, I have gone to the er and they tell me it is acid refulux, bossilbe bowel obstruction, or of a kindney problem. I know it is the aftermath of taking the iud out. I feel sick all the time, cry all the time because no one will help or believe me, at times I feel as if I an ninety years old. bloated beyeond believe. mean to my children. sometimes severe pain right around by belly button. help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! major headaches

I was on the ring for about 5 months, recently removed it and won't ever use it again. I started getting really bad chest pain and everytime I ate a meal my stomach would get bloated and I would have lots of gas, people would think I was pregnant. I never had a 'roll' on my stomach but this gave me one and now that I am off of it, it's not there anymore. I was also tired all the time, could sleep half the day away. My headaches were bad!!!!! I get pain in my breasts that I have never felt before, I get scared at times because I don't know what to do. When I asked my Dr. she told me to try it for 1 more month and if I still feel the same to discontinue, but I couldn't take it anymore I had to remove it. Now I am just awaiting the aftermath of the BC.

hi all,i have been off yasmin for 3 days now,i am not expecting any miracles yet! i stopped taking it with 5 pills still in the pack so expect to get a withdrawl bleed any day now, it may be all in my head but my anxiety seems less although i still get palpitations at night,the only down side is i seem to have had a pressure headache for the last 2 days and also a sore throat,could be a coicidence, that is the trouble as we do not know exactly what yasmin does and does not do it's hard to say "oh it's definately this that or the other"! My philosophy at the moment is ..... it may make a difference it may not but either way i know i am still going to have to cope with the aftermath and the memories of the anxiety but by stopping pumping my body full of artificial hormones i can rule it out as a cause of my weird and not so wonderful symptoms! Thanks to all have posted your stories on here,i felt so alone and felt that maybe i was going crazy,my doctors just wanted to send me to the shrink and put me on pills. but now i have taken control of my situation i feel much improved mentally even if not physically yet, hopefully that will come once this crap is out of my system! you're all stars and i wish you all the best with your recovery! i will be sending my sceptical pill pushing dr to this site so maybe he will think twice next time someone comes in feeling like we have and is taking yasmin!

I just completed 5 day's on Levaquin for a sinus infection.Well the infection is better but the aftermath of Levaquin is far worse than the reason I started it. I feel like I have been run over by a train...pain in the arm muscles mostly, hands & fingers swollen,I tried pain medication & no help there. Very tired..all I can do is get up from the chair with great difficulty. It has also affected the strength on my legs..I got out of bed last nite and wondered if I could even walk to the bathroom without help...Please please...if this is prescribed for you, discuss these side-effects with your physician...