Going blind symptoms and conditions

This is the 3rd time I am taking levaquin in about 3 years. I had a MRSA type infection in my eye 2 years ago that I got in the hospital visiting my dying mother. She by the way died of a mysterious"infection" in her spine but frankly reading all of this I suppose it could have been caused by levaquin because they never found an infection but she complained of so much pain in her spinal collumn that they had to put her of morphine. No cause was ever determined but she was a dialysis patient and was given Levaquin on a regular basis for the infections that are common with having a stint in her arm. Her circulatory system collapsed and they could not do dialysis on her and she died after a week.
Getting back to my situation. I got the infection when rubbing the tears out of my eyes and woke up the morning of her funeral with a bad infection in the eye. Was going to eye doctor every week for 3 months thought I was going blind. Took 3 months of 750 mg dose. And multiple eye ointments. My eye sight took a hit and I now need to wear glasses for driving always. Used to have near perfect vision before this. This past year I took it again for Lyme's disease and after about a month after I developed and nerve or tendon pull in my neck that they could not explain how I got it. But I went to the emergency room and they gave me a neck support to wear.
Just was on Levaquin again for upper respiratory infection. Woke up in the middle of the night second day I was taking it. My head was pounding and it felt like it was going to explode (literally). At the same time my chest felt like it was collapsing. I thought I was really going to die and I was entirely coming undone in my mind. I called a friend at 2:30 AM and asked him (who is religious) if he knew any prayers for those who are about to die. I truly felt this was it - the end. No one told me about Levaquin's side effects until the other day when I was reading on the internet. I now have a pulsating sound in my ears that sounds like it is linked to my heartbeat. Never heard this sound before. Its been there for almost a week and it started a few days after I stopped taking the levaquin. I also have been noticing I have a shortness of breath and I am trying to move in a week. I keep getting very fatigued and have to lay down. Find myself falling asleep quite frequently.

I am a 66 year old male being treated for giant cell arteritis and have been on prednisone for one year and ten days. The disease and its treatment with prednisone has completely reordered my life. My doctor told me that I dodged the big bullet but there would be more. He was right. The 60 mg dose of prednisone I started with was both a life and eye saver. Three months later I was down to 40 mg and I was starting to sleep more than the two - four hours per night that allowed me to all kinds of things done which the increased adrenlin made possible.

Unfortunately, the prednisone made control of my blood sugar nearly impossible even with maximum dosages of metformin and avandia. I was soon forced to add injections of insulin to my daily regime. As I gradually reduced the amount of prednisone I gained some measure of control but was not able to start decreasing the amounts of insulin I was taking until I had dropped down below 20 mg. Now that I am down to 5mg I'm off the insulin and two weeks ago I took my last metformin tab.

Prednisone accelerated the growth of cataracts in both of my eyes. I was taking the prednizone with the hope it would drive the arteritis into remission and I would avoid going blind. And I was blinded anyway by the cataracts. Fortunately the cataract surgery I had in May and June better than restored my sight. I now only need glasses for reading. I was thrilled and could even see myself going back to work at least on a part time basis. No such luck.

After telling my doctor how great it was to be able to read again I mentioned that I thought I had a groin pull because I had been experiencing pain in my groin area and the top of my right thigh just above the knee. That got his attention and he said it might be related to the prednisone. He sent me for a MRI of both hips. The results were not good. I was diagnosed with avascular necrosis in both femur bones with some deterioration of the right femoral ball. A month later I had core decompression surgery of the right femur. The surgeon told me that we had caught it early and this surgery had a 50/50 chance of restimulating the venus blood path that fatty deposits caused by the prednisone had closed off causing the bone to die. Unfortunately, it now looks that it didn't work for me and I have additional micro fractures of the ball joint that weren't there when he operated. My left hip isn't far behind and I now have enough pain in both hips even with the anti inflamatory medicine I'm taking to make it difficult for me to walk to the mail box or negotiate stairs.

I hope that I'll be able to wean myself off the prednisone entirely, but for those folks that are putting up with all the most common side effects, getting down to and below 5 mg per day will seriously reduce if not eliminate the effect they have on you. That includes the fat face and turkey neck, and the thin skin that shows vividly every bump and bleeds profusly with the slightest abrasion that more often than not you can't recall the incident that caused it. The giant cell (also known as templar) arteritis disease I developed was devastating to me and really put me down for the count. I lost 30 of my obese pounds in the first two weeks of symptoms I had with this disease. Even though I was over weight, I was very active and got lots of exercise doing my own lawn work ( 1 acre lot) with a walk behind mower and lots of leaves to rake. Within two months after diagnosis I had managed to work my way up to a two mile walk everday. After 3 months I was walking between 15 and 20 miles every week. Now, as I said, I'm lucky to walk to the end of my driveway to get the mail.

Prednisone is not a miricle drug. It is a terrible medicine with terrible side effects that has been arround for a very long time. Unfortunately, it is the only medicine available to successfully treat a wide range of autoimmune diseases that have no cure and would be absolutely unbearable without it.

Hello- I was Dx with Sarcoidosis in February, 2007. My lung specialist put me on 20mg Prednisone, increasing to 40mg within two weeks. My Sarcoid symptoms were from enlarged lymph- extreme trouble breathing, middle and lower back pain, kidney pain. Within a week of being at the 40mg level my heart rate and BP became so erratic that he had to start weaning me down. Initially I had extreme energy which felt good after suffering from fatigue but was short lived due to the cardiac problems.

The Prednisone has resolved much of my inflammation for the Sarcoid but I will not go on this again. I have been weaning now for over three weeks. Down under 5mg of Prednisone and it is almost unbearable. Each time I took a drop my mental symptoms became intolerable. Anxiety, extreme fatigue with extreme weakness, irrational thoughts, blurred vision. Within the last couple of days I could hardly get myself out of bed. My weight has increased steadily, bloating stomach, stiff joints, skin rash.

My biggest complaint is that doctors are not giving us enough information as to how this will affect from a negative side. Yes, it takes care of the inflammation but no one prepared me for these awful side effects and withdrawal symptoms. I feel like a nut case most of the time with no coping skills.

I was dianosed with an immune disorder of the inner eye. It was advanced enough that regular treatments were not effective. So the dr. started me at 60 mg of prednisone and started to taper it off at 20 mg. every 2 weeks. At 6 weeks, it was observed that my symptoms had reappeared and so he started back at 60 and the tapering was much, much slower (50 mg, 40 mg 30 mg 25 mg 20 mg 15 mg 10 mg 7.5 mg 5 mg 2.5mg) the first week I had panic attacks and wanted to physically attack people. I couldn't sleep. After that I had mood swings, fuzziness, forgetfulness and confusion, all I wanted to do was lay on the couch. I had heart palpitations, moon face (people thought that I'd had dental surgury) went from a size 6 to a size 12. I had terrible yeast infections, and wanted lots of fluid and had frequent urination. It was horrible. By the time I was done (and I had withdrawel symptoms long after I stopped taking it) I'd lost 2 years to the side effects. I do get to keep my eyesight. Fair trade, I suppose. In the next year and a half I lost weight down to a size 2, not as good as it sounds, all my muscle tone had gone and I'm having to rebuild from being nearly skeletal. The worst part of it is.. at any time I can be put back on prednisone and will probably choose to over losing my sight. At what point does one have to worry about osteoporosis? How much prednisone for how long effects the bones? There are things I'd like to do, but I'm not sure if I should.