Fluoroquinolone antibiotics symptoms and conditions

I go by the ID Miserable Knees. I posted last spring on medications.com about my adverse reaction to Levaquin. I was given a 10 day prescription for a respiratory infection. 3 days after I finished taking Levaquin, BOTH KNEES were swollen, painful and I could barely walk. I spent a month throwing myself backwards into chairs due to the inflammation in my knees. My knees were on fire, I was in pain every day. After seeing an orthopedic doctor an MRI showed cartilage damage. A year later, I'm living with permanently altered legs. I was an avid walker, loved to hike, would spend hours walking for recreation. Levaquin changed all of that. I had a career requiring me to be on my feet for 12 or more hours a day. Levaquin changed all of that. I decided, if this could happen to me, it could happen to anyone. Now, there is a documentary about the dangers of fluoroquinolne antibiotics. When I was harmed by Levaquin, I was flabbergasted that something like this could happen to me in the prime of my life. I made this 52 minute film for all of the people like me who trusted the system, (government, doctor, medicine) to guarantee my safety. "Certain Adverse Events" is the name of the documentary and it is now available online. You can reach the documentary site by going online to the .com of "Certain Adverse Events"

Miserable Knees Productions

I am a physician and have prescribed levaquin to many people. I have had some of them complain of what they thought were serious and variable side effects but mostly I attributed their problems to anxiety and hypochondiasis. I now know differently. I took levaquin, and for over a year I have had serious CNS anxiety, insomnia, joint and tendon pain, and widespread peripheral neuropathy. It has been an awful time and since realizing that the effects are often long term I have been able to identify many other patients who have developed serious long term problems with anxiety, depression, arthropathy and tendonopathy, neuropathy and possibly endocrine effects like gonadal failure and worsening of diabetes. There are no long term studies done post marketing to identify these effects and to unify all of these problems into one syndrom of fluoroquinolone toxicity. This is a big problem and I believe thousands of patients have been adversely affected by the use and misuse of levaquin and probably the other fluoroquinolone antibiotics. I have other colleagues who are beginning to recognize the long term consequences of levaquin and the fluoroquinolones. More research and study needs to be done. In the mean time I am sure that Johnson and Johnson, Ortho- Mcneil, will continue to refute that the incidence of serious adverse reactions is much higher than they report.

It is Fluoride Poisoning that has caused nerve damage!!! Natural vitamins that can be found anywhere are 5-HTP to help rebuilld the seretonin levels in your nerve system and Magnesium pills or magnesium rich foods will help quicken the process of ridding your body of the fluoride. It is mostly a waiting game, but these will help!!! My 26 year old wife was down for 2 and a half weeks before she stopped listening to the doctors and starting taking these supplements and felt better within 3 days and was back to normal within 1 week of starting these two natural supplements!!!

I was prescribed Citro for a ear infection so after 10 days of taking Cipro 500mg 2 times a day, less than 2 days after that I broke out with a fever ranging from 104. - 102.4 for about 3 days at the same time I had joint pain all over my body and pain in my upper legs. On the 4th day after that I broke out in a rash all over my legs and buttocks area, I called the doc that prescribed me Cipro and she said my symptoms had nothing to with the Cipro. I see my dermatologist 5 days after and I find I have a allergic reaction to Cipro. So beware and always get a second, third opinion.

I WAS a very healty 45 year old. I walked/ran 3.5 miles a day and did weight training 3 x a week. Ate healthy. No medicines at all, never sick. Had a mild sinus infection and hot flashes followed by freezing that we thought might be from the sinus infection. Dr. gave me Levaquin. Within a couple of days, I felt like both of my hamstrings were pulled and could barely walk. Bear in mind, that I had not been excercizing due to work circumstances. I had a shaky feeling inside that you could sort of see in my fingers. Anxiety. Depression. Mild nausea. Fatigue. A month later, still having the hot flashes and freezing and worse than ever (seems like constant), doctor thought the sinus infection hadn't cleared up so he prescribed cipro - 15 days 500 mg along with a steroid. Everything got even worse. Rash on my hand/arm the first or second day that I blew off as from an ant bite. Nightmares the first 3 nights. Hot flashes often accompanied by racing heartbeat, sometimes slight chest pain if the hot flashes came one right after the other. As I write this I am dripping in sweat. Headache. Also, all my joints started, and continue to hurt. Knees, ankles, even fingers and toes. I've never had arthritis, but I imagine this is what it would feel like if you had it in your entire body. Also, I feel STARVING right AFTER I eat. A relative emailed me a scanned copy of her pharmacy's warnings for levaquin and it mentions hypoglycemia and lists many of these symptoms. (not the muscle ones)
My dr. is attributing most of it to 'anxiety' but I didn't have the anxiety until after the meds and the symptoms.
He did a host of bloodwork to rule out infection, lupus, hormone problems, thyroid, etc and they all came back normal.

In the past I had taken two separate three day courses for diverticulits, it worked right off, no problems. Last time I had diverticulitis, my doctor prescribed 10 day course of combo levaquin and flagl. After 7 days, I started to get hip joint pain, foot joint pain, and mild numbness in fingers on both hands and toes on one. I called doctor, and stopped the levaquin, and fortunately, the divertiltis was gone. However, the joint pain lessened after stopping but is taking weeks to fully go away.

I have found that silica (usually found in horsetail or oceanic) is helpful against the joint pain. (I had also tried selenium, msm, but were of no help for this joint pain.) Most of the joint pain is gone after several doses of silica, but the numbness, though lessened, lingers on a bit.

i don't think I'll take levaquin again for diverticulitis unless I'm dying. I've found that garlic tablets (I like solary's) very helpful, as is vitamin-c, for fighting back my intenstial bugs, and if I use garlic & vit-c for 5 or more days, it seems to cure the problem. Also I've heard that bacteria do not build up immunity to garlic, that it is a broad-spectrum antiboitic and antiviral, and so even if I stop taking it too soon and the bug comes right back, I can just get back on the garlic for a longer time, no worries about mutant bacteria.

Two weeks after taking Levaquin for a urinary tract infection, I developed a rash/hives that covered my entire body. I had frequent violent itching attacks and wanted to scratch my skin off. After two days of the hives, I went to Urgent Care and was given a steroid shot and Prednisone. The next day I had severe chest pains and shortness of breath. I went to the emergency room and and EKG came back abnormal. My white cell count had shot off the charts to 35.0 I was admitted to the cardiac unit and was put through a battery of heart tests. All came back unremarkable. After three days of blood tests, CT scans and nitro tablets, I was released with no conclusion as to what I was experiencing. The rash continued, just not as bad and I've experienced joint pain. One week after the intial symptoms, I began experiencing dizziness and loss of vision. It has now been two weeks. I've had a MRI on my head to determine the cause of the dizziness and the vision loss and results from the MRI are pending. I was a healthy 46 year old before taking Levaquin. Currently, I cannot work a full day without vision loss or dizziness. I've been so perplexed as have the five doctors I've seen as to what the cause of my symptoms could be. After reading many comments from Levaquin patients, I now believe that I've found the cause.

I am a 27 y/o male in good physical condition (i did a triathlon 2 months ago) I was prescribed levaquin 750mg a week ago for an throat infection and fever. After the first dose I had sever abdominal pain (like someone was stabbing me). After the 3rd dose my back started to hurting and my calf's cramped up. I stopped the medication immediately. It has been 5 days since I stopped the medication and I have a burning sensation on my back. It is on both sides and stretches around toward my stomach. It feels like I have bad sunburn but there is no redness, swelling or discoloration. I also still have fever and muscle spasms all over my body (mostly in my legs). I went to my doctor yesterday and he is running a bunch of blood testes and I hope he can find a way to treat the symptoms. Does anyone know how long this should last? I just want it to go away so I can get on with my life. Any help or suggestions are appreciated.

My internal medicine specialist prescribed Levaquin 500MG, one per day on 10/14/03 for lesions on right arm. Took last dose 11/07/03 when my dermatologist said I should stop taking the Levaquin and start Cipro. I checked with my nephrologist who was treating me with plasma exchanges for a peripheral neuropathy was advised they used Cipro "all the time" and it would be OK for me to switch from the Levaquin to Cipro (also a fluoroquinolone). On 11/08 I started Cipro and took only one dose before becoming nauseated. On 11/10 I left a message for my dermatologist that I was switching back to Levaquin because the Cipro caused nausea. I got no response to the message. On 11/24/03, while standing motionless beside my van, my LEFT ACHILLES TENDON SPONTANEOUSLY RUPTURED. I am now taking NON-Fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Interestingly, when I made a routine followup visit to my internal medicine M.D. on 1/20/04 and brought him up to date about my 11/24 tendon rupture and showed him literature about tendon damage as a side effect associated with fluoroquinolone antibiotics, he replied, "Oh yes, they are a known risk for tendon problems." It didn't occur to me until this moment while looking back into my journal that this is the same doctor who originally prescribed the Levaquin. The sad point of this situation is that NONE of the physicians recognized the risk of my taking fluoroquinolones. I have been on long-term Prednisone therapy for the neuropathy. The literature is filled with references highlighting the risk of tendon damage associated with the combination of steroid therapy and fluoroquinolone usage. I've been in a cast for 10 weeks and will be in physical therapy for several weeks, all of which has set back my therapy for the neuropathy and caused an overall deterioration in my condition. Does anyone think my docs were negligent?

I was recently prescribed 500 mg of Levaquin per day (for a total of 10 days) to treat a sinus infection and a staph infection of the eye (the systemic Levaquin was in addition to Ciloxin eye drops).

I have almost always been prescribed Zithromycin for infections in the past, which I have used without incident.

All I can say is that I'm on day 7 of the Levaquin now and I'm having several very weird side effects.

I'm anxious as hell, irritable, terrible nightmares, flashes of hot and cold that seem to have nothing to do with the actual temperature of the environment. This Levaquin seems to be having effects on me that are more akin to a psychotropic drug than a regular antibiotic.

I did some research on the web and found out that fluoroquinolone antibiotics compete with GABA receptors in the brain, which means that, at least for some people, the fluoroquinolone antibiotics such as Levaquin will have an effect on them that is pretty much the opposite of valium . . . instead of calming you down . . . it ramps up your central nervous system and can seemingly cause all sorts of weird things.

At least for me, I don't think I'll be wanting to take this Levaquin drug ever again. I can't say it's bad for all people, but it's been a very unsettling experience for me.