Buyer beware symptoms and conditions

weight GAIN (25lbs in 1 year) - I am an Army Doctor - work out every day and work very hard... and healthy diet. Despite all that i GAINED weight.

abdominal distention - marked.

severe constipation - myxedematous pseudomemranous colitis is now suspected.

BUYER BEWARE!!!

I've taken Levaquin before with no ill effects. This time around for a sinus infection...I'm 5 days into tx and last night I couldn't sleep at all. Severe insomnia, worse than with Sudafed. Was restless and agitated. I didn't like that very much but I successfully zeroed out the effect with a sleeping pill. Still, I'm considering D/C'ing the med since I never had this effect before. I don't know...it's a very effective antibiotic.

I agree with a lot of people posting to this group who realize that all medications, even innocuous aspirin, have severe and sometimes even deadly side effects. In the medical world, we all have to practice the "buyer beware" creed: Research everything that goes into your mouth. Figure out what literature and the public is saying, learn how to interpret side effect percentages and put it in perspective by looking at side effects for OTC meds, too. There is hardly a single med out there, Rx or OTC, that hasn't caused *someone* to have a severe side effect, but we need to evaluate which side effects are acceptable risks and which not. Weigh the benefit with the risk.

Minor illness + large % irreversible side effect = don't take it.

Deadly illness + large % irreversible side effect = what do you have to lose?

Anything in between is a judgement call between you and your brain....

I agree...Drs. should tell us more about these things...but since we all know by now that the medical establishment is being driven more and more by HMO attitudes and Drs. are driven to prescribe drugs based on the basket of brownies and free samples that the cute drug rep brought in this week, let's just agree that it is now OUR responsibility to figure this stuff out for ourselves.

I's a sad state, but the medical establishment is not going to change. We all need to realize that we are the last stop on the road between sickness and health.