Moderate activity symptoms and conditions

At age 71, in excellent health and rarely seeing a physician except for minor skin irritations, I experienced a mild TIA and to be on the safe side, checked into the Emergency room. Among the medications recommended were Lipitor which I began taking regularly. Within less that 6 weeks, I'd developed a heart murmur, had an echocardiogram and was told that I'd developed a severe stenosis. The murmur was not present at the time of my TIA or a month later.

After about another month, I was walking the dog and began to experience fatigue and muscle soreness. At the same time, my left little and ring finger began to 'fall asleep' with tingling and loss of a sense of touch. That has continued for several months.

By the following day, the sense of fatigue upon any moderate activity was like being hit by a truck, it was sudden, unremitting and would only relieve with rest. Any attempt to walk more than 100 yards was out of the question.

I talked to 3 different specialists, none of them were willing to listen to me when I suggested that the cause of this was linked to Lipitor. By now, I had taken myself off of it and have not resumed.

I believe that the Lipitor also caused renal insufficiency which I'd only begun to experience after taking it.

The most difficult part of dealing with this problem is finding a physician who is willing to listen. Presently, the neuropathy is 24/7 but the generalized weakness has not gotten any worse and seems to be permanent.

As I read others complaints, mine are limited to the physical, there's been no effect mentally other than insomnia.

I was prescribed Levaquin for seven days in August for a strep throat infection. I took a "frontload" dose of 750mg and four doses of 500mg. I got off it after the 5th day due to strange feelings of tingling, burning, stiffness, and pain in my feet, ankles, knees, and hips.

For the first week or so after discontinuing Levaquin, I could barely hobble around due to the stiffness and pain in my legs. I took an Aleve every twelve hours for about 10 days, which helped a lot. As someone on this board suggested, I also tried drinking Ensure (apparently the calcium and magnesium helps to counteract the effects of the drug). Can't really say whether it did much, but at least I felt like I was doing something to repair the damage. I laid off vigorous exercise but tried to maintain some moderate activity so as not to let my muscles weaken.

I'm relieved to report the symptoms diminished over time. After about two weeks off Levaquin, I finally had a pain-free day. It's now been six weeks and I'm pretty much back to normal (though still being careful not to overstress my joints).

My heart goes out to anybody suffering from the side effects of this drug. I hope with care and patience you're able to recover. I feel lucky to get out of this without being crippled. I will NEVER take Levaquin again.