Sedatives symptoms and conditions

I have been on 500mg Levaquin for approximately 10 days, and thought I was doing fine. I did notice that I felt a bit hyper, but not enough to bother me. Then, last night, I simply could not sleep. I have had insomnia at times in the past, and I have found that mild sedatives such as Valium and Ativan work quite well in small doses. But last night, even after taking Valium, I was simply wide awake. There was nothing particular on my mind - I just couldn't sleep. I got up at 3am to pay bills out of sheer boredom laying in bed. Ultimately, I got a total of two hours sleep. I decided to research if the insomnia and overall hyper feelings might be a side effect of the Levaquin, and read the insert for the first time. And there it is on the first line of side effects - difficulty sleeping. Then I Googled it, and found this site. Apparently, I am not alone. So today, I will contact my MD, and most likely suspend the Levaquin.

I finally don't feel so alone. I got into poison ivy on June 1. On June 12th I finally went to my md to get something to take for it to go away. I had been treating it with calamine, topical stuff and taking Benadryl.... She gave me a shot which actually made it all go away within two hours. BUT, she also loves giving out pills, so she gave me the Dexpak. I took it for 7 days and my heart was beating uncontrollably. I didn't get REM sleep for 5 straight days. I took myself off. Cold turkey, yeah, I know you're not supposed to do that, but that stuff was killing me. So finally after having a meltdown in my office at home, my husband and I went back to her to see what she could do for me. She said oh, just go home, drink some wine and get some sleep.
I went home, drank two glasses of wine (which after doing research is NO combination with with high powered drug and she should have known better!!) Took a really hot bath, tried to get sleep. My husband took off work for three days to try to get me sleep.... finally we went to the ER because my heart wouldn't stop pounding so fast. The ER drugged me with some serious sedatives. I had a reaction to those and had a panic attack in the ER, so their solution: strap her down (bruised my wrist) and take her to a psychiatric unit for "symptoms of schzitophernia." So I was basically in a room with a bunch of people that can't control themselves. I did get 8 hours of sleep and regained all cohesive control. I was still groggy from the sedatives, but I knew what was going on. The nurses were the rudest people I have EVER been in contact with. No wonder the patients were in fits! After 5 hours of me and my husband (who was downstairs with my Mom) they finally released me. I talked to the discharge nurse and she said that if I sign a form releasing myself "against medical advice" that insurance might not pay for it. I said, are you kidding me? I would rather pay to get out of here than sit here one more minute with these people.

It was the worst medical experience I've EVER had. I have since fired my md. She doesn't know it though because she hasn't BOTHERED to call to check on me!! So, I am not going to a psychologist and my obgyn to make sure those steroids didn't screw up my brain or my endocrine system as we are trying to have a baby. Yeah, that was my first thought too... why would my MD who KNOWS we are trying to conceive do this to me?

Whew. Anyway, so my advice is to make sure you have someone around you at all times that can monitor your heart beat and write down EVERYTHING that happens in case you have a situation like mine. I journal all the time, so it was easy for me to explain to the shrink.

Okay, good luck out there!!!

Angry? Depressed? You can't believe how much I feel this way.
I am absolutely convinced now that this is what happened to me.
I am 54.

That first week that the ER doctor got me on Levaquin for the flu and bronchitis ( and no other medicine ) is when these entire body attacks and failures ( pain, weakness, and almost every other symptom you all have realted here, began. I had an abulance take me back to the ER as these were so bad and were so different from anything I had been experiencing with the flu and bronchitis the 3 or 4 days preceding taking Levaquin and having these attacks start within one or two days of taking this. At the ER they just check basically your vitals and when these checked out they kept giving me sedatives to stop the shaking and saying they didn't think anything was wrong with me except anxiety! Couldn't they have ONCE asked what medication I was on and at LEAST considered the possibility that maybe I was having a bad reaction to this? And IT WAS THE ONLY MEDICINE I WAS ON!

Now, I am going to have to present my beliefs again to my doctors, who when I barely mentioned this possibility the last time I saw them cut off the conversation as if I was talking about flying saucers!
If I was a doctor...one of the first things I would do is go back to when all this first started and looked at what medicine I was taking at the time. And if I saw that there was only "one" powerful drug entering my body at this time and just looked at the potential side ffects listed in their brochures...I would have suspected that this was probably a bad reaction to this!
But I can't even get them to consider this logical reflection. IT is just maddening, insane...that they won't even consider this possibility. And in the mean time, six months later I have lost my job, my legs, I still have every symprtom I had the first wek to either worse or improving levels and I am so depressed and scared that this might be permenet damage. It looks like with the new Republican shutting down on the little persons ability to sue the big corpoartions that thousands of law firms don'tt even want to consider taking something like this on. What they want are absolute fool proof cases that even a jury of Drug Company CEO's couldn't vote against.

I am going public with this and I am telling you this IS THE ONLY WAY any of us will ever get any recognition and chance at some compensatory justice here. I have already e-mailed vanity Fair. I have contacted Parade Magazine. I have left an e-mail message with well know A.P.Health issue correspondent Linda A. Johnson. I just came across this site last week and it has answered so many of my questions. But all of you. All of us, must start writing to everyone, congres people, newspapers, magazine and anyone else you can think of. I am convinced that we are the vistims of not only a terrifically poisonous damaging drug that is damaging way more people than anyone is acknowledging and in much greater ways, but we are up against a machine of extremely powerful self interest corp[orations and the individuals who own the majority interest in them but also compromised medical doctors and other health care professionals connected to this; pharmacies etc.

Hi Sophie!

Different than the last post I don't think that your life is really in danger... Don't worry (sounds very weird, I know.....). But, YES that's exactly the way I felt, too, under and even about 3 - 4 MONTHS AFTER Yasmin!! And so much times I was really about to call 911 (well, though here in Germany it's 112 ;).

The Valerian you can get in every pharmacy / drugstore. It's a herbal medicine which helps you to calm down a bit. In my worst times I had them with me every day. It's not as dangerous as all of the chemical antidepressants or sedatives, which I would refuse to take, if I were you, as long as I could!!

And if the panic attack gets that heavy, that you think you REALLY can't bear it anymore, there's always the chance to call 911 to perhaps give you a slight injection or such to just help this one attack.

You should always keep in mind, that those attacks won't be there every day of your life!! I swear they will get lighter and lighter every month, I definitely KNOW what I'm talking about!!! Today I'm nearly free of them (well, I feel a change every few weeks, when my period "should" come or so, which is because of the hormonal changes a body goes through within a month!!)

Sometimes it helped me also just to hear some music, that I'm really keen on or just read a little bit or even watch TV. You should try to not stress up yourself to much with other things (doing your household or anything). Everything is unimportant besides your health at the moment!!

And you're definitely NOT bugging me, Sophie!! I see which phase you're in and I'm feeling so much with you, because I remember me sitting in the same sh.... as you do now about one Year ago!! And I know that the only thing that can help a bit at the moment is someone who understands you're problems and someone you just can talk with about that agony!!

And another thing, which I guess you are feeling, too: I always thought, I will never get through this and this is the way things will stay for the rest of my life and I always was afraid to completely loose my mind over all this!! And look at me now: I didn't loose my mind and everything is nearly completely gone!! I'm working again, going out again, today my husband and I will do a little shopping tour, which I thought I would never be able to do ever again in my life!!!

Sophie, if I could I would like to give you a big hug right now (My thoughts send you a big hug right now!!) and tell you, that it's just a phase you have to go through now until that Yasmin poison has completely gone out of your system and you're hormones finally get back in balance. And I swear, the sun will shine again for you, too, in a few months!!

Stay strong and hang in there, you have the strenght to get over this, I know!!!

Big hugs and god's bless to you!!

Feel free to E-Mail me or post here again if you're in need for help!!!

Silke