Three months later symptoms and conditions

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.

I started taking Levaquin on Thursday October 4 for a sinus/throat infection. 5 days later and I feel wired out of my mind. Strange thoughts, increased energy intertwined with panic, wrist/hip pain, very little sleep. Severe stomach pain, constipation, nausea and vomiting, gagging reflex. Also mouth sores, and terrible taste in mouth. This has me very concerned. I am grateful that this isn't my imagination. Thanks for this forum. Why is this drug still on the market. Karen in Winnipeg, Canada

I had my iud for a month and then all of a sudden one night i noticed a horrible pain in my left leg that i couldnt get to go away.I laid on the floor and elevated my leg with no relief. I tried to get up off the floor so that my husband could take me to the er, i then realized that i couldnt walk, i was having blurred vision, numbness in my left arm, slurred speech. My husband took me to the er and they did an ekg, ct scan, x-ray, mri of my entire body during my day 2 day admittance to the hospital. They found nothing wrong with me, i still continued to have leg pain, inability to sleep at night and was forced to take motrin to help me fall asleep. I had another episode two weeks later that cause the same symtoms along with a really bad panic attack, this time the ambulance was called and they took me to the hospital and the drs said noting could be found to be wrong with me. Well i then decided to have it taken out and here i am almost three months later symtom free. I dont reccomend mirena to anyone. I truly felt like i was having a stroke with all the symptoms the two have in common.

Hi, My name is Scott and I am 58 years old. I had a severe case of Bronchitis four years ago. I was so sick my Doc. sent me to have a chest x-ray thinking I might have pneumonia. He prescribed Levaquin...one tablet a day for 30 days. I immediately started taking the antibiotic. I was so sick I did not realize any reaction immediately. I just felt horrible, but attributed it to the bronchitis. The infection started to come under control, but I was starting to feel worst physically. I got so bad my wife took me to the emergency room. I was slurring my speech, my muscles ached, I had night sweats and I lost my coordination. It had also affected my memory...both short term and long term. The physician who saw me at the hospital was 99% sure that I had suffered a stroke. I was admitted to the hospital and spent 3 days undergoing blood-work and testing to see if they could determine what was happening to me. Upon release I was sent to a neurologist and had MRI's of my brain. All came back negative.

I took the medicine for 26 days before it dawned on me that it could be a reaction to the Levaquin. I went home and researched Levaquin and was blown away by what I read. All of the weird symptoms I had been experiencing were right there in front of me. I immediately stopped taking the antibiotic and within days started to feel better. I continued to get better until I was feeling almost normal. This took about three weeks. I still experienced problems with my memory and had residual effects with my coordination, but otherwise felt 100% better.

Approximately three months later I had a severe relapse. It came out of the blue. I was not taking any medicine, but was taken to the hospital and admitted with the same symptoms I had experienced before. Again the Doc's had no idea what the problem was. I did explain about my reaction to the prior use of levaquin, but that was dismissed as not probable and they released me after three days with no idea what was wrong.

I continued to have relapses for the next 2 1/2 years, every three or four months. Each time was not as bad as the last. Finally I traveled to Boston and saw a very well known neurologist who explained that he had seen this before. He called it a post infection syndrome. He was the first person who agreed that it was a reaction to my long-term use of levaquin. I finally felt vindicated!

If you check the manufacturer warnings online, you will see that they do know about these reactions. It a small percentage so they think the benefits out way the adverse reactions of some patients. As a person who has suffered with these reactions, no percentage is worth the risk!

For those of you that are experiencing adverse effects, there is hope at the end of the tunnel. It does take time, but it does get better. I can live with my memory problems and although I have some residual muscle and tendon problems in my legs, my life is almost back to normal. I have not had a relapse in the past year.

Good luck to everyone and keep the faith!

Scott

Levaquin 500mg prescribed for bronchitis for 10 days. Doctor had to stop on day 7 because of migraine aura told to be low blood sugar. This was in December, 2006. After stopping there has been difficulty walking, with severe pain in legs. Also migraine auras return and are still present three months later. These symptoms were not present in December. This is a poison. Why this drug was given I do not know. There are plenty of other antibiotics which I have taken which did not cause symptoms once stopped.
There was one other that was horrible, Ketek, which has now been stopped because of liver problems.
Would not take Levaquin again.

Help me please! I was on Yasmin for only three months but it has changed my life dramatically. I realized it all when a cop stopped me and my driver's licence was taken away. I reacted by crying hysterically, for over two weeks, vomitting everything I ate (I lost 10 pounds in two weeks) and feeling drepressed. I went off the pill right away and now almost three months later, it happened again. This time it is job/career related and I am at work and all of a sudden I burst out crying and my chest hurts and I feel such a failure and extremely depressed. After being off the pills for almost three months, is this normal? or am i officially going crazy? Will I react to every stressful situation with extreme anxiety attacks? Please help!

Took Avelox and my mouth swelled up and I had hives from head to toe and had to go to the ER twice in three days. First visit I was given a shot and sent home two days last I was worse and went back to ER and had to be put on IV's and gave me a ton of medice to help with the reaction I was having from Avelox. About three weeks after stopping Avelox I started having a whole bunch of medicial trouble and here it is three months later and still having trouble and I believe that it is from the Avelox but told no by famil doctor.

My fifteen-year-old daughter was taking Doxycycline 100MG capsules twice a day for about 6-7 months for moderate acne when she started to have a painful constant burning sensation in her upper stomach area. She stopped taking Doxycycline and within a couple of days, the pain was completely gone. Three months later she began to take it again, within four short days the same symptom returned. Once again, she stopped taking the capsules and the pain was gone in only one day. We are absolutely certain that Doxycycline was irritating her stomach and is no way a coincidence.

I took lisinopril for high blood pressure for 3 months. During that my physical condition gradually but steadily deteriorated. As I write this, I am off the lisinopril now for 3 more months and very slowly recovering.

My symptoms included cough, shortness of breath, loss of stamina during exercise, frequent stomach and intestinal cramping and burning sensation, sweating, severe acne break out on the chest and back, difficulty concentrating, loss of sleep quality, and weekly spells with low grade fever.

The symptoms started appearing gradually, and I first noticed them about 2-3 weeks after starting lisinopril. The cough was mild at first. It never got that bad really, but I found there was a cycle. If I coughed in the morning, I'd generally feel better, and when I didn't cough for a few days, some of my symptoms (shortness of breath, loss of stamina) would increase. Then I'd finally cough again and be a bit better for a while. As time went on I started having more bad days than good.

After quitting lisinopril for 3 months now, the symptoms have faded, except I still have the occasional cough (yes three months later, though its finally almost gone), and some shortness of breath. My energy level & stamina are very slowly returning, but still not normal. I am now finally having more good days than bad. Within a week after quitting lisinopril, the symptoms all faded noticeably, and have been slowly going away with time.

It seems to me that there is something seriously wrong with this medication.

About me: I am 42, male, generally good health. I took the lisinopril because my doctor felt my blood pressure was too high. After complaining about the various symptoms listed above, my doctor recommended separate additional medications to treat the individual symptoms, not recognizing all of them together as side effects. I finally figured it out myself as things just kept getting worse. Since I have quit, I have started jogging to help with my stamina. My blood pressure has gone below 135/85, and am now not taking any medication for blood pressure (or anything else).

Immediately after quitting, my blood pressure went quite high (160/95) and stayed that way for a week, I think that was due to quitting the drug quickly. Still, for me personally, I'd rather have done that then take one more dose of this so-called medicine.

I HAD A SHOT IN MY HIP LAST FALL FOR SEASONAL ALLERGIES. A WEEK AFTER MY FIRST NORMAL PERIOD I BEGAN THREE GOING ON FOUR WEEKS OF VERY HEAVY BLEEDING. I FINALLY WENT TO MY OB GYN AND HE SAID HE SEES THIS PROBLEM ON A REGULAR BASIS. THE KENALOG TOTALLY WIPES OUT A FEMALES HORMONE BALANCE. I HAD TO TAKE DOUBLE DOSES OF BITH CONTROL PILLS FOR TEN DAYS TO GET THORUGH MY VACATION AND RE-SET MY CYCLE. I AM NOW ANEMIC FROM THE BLOOD LOSS AND TAKING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF IRON. NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN I HAVE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE. COULD THIS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE SHOT THREE MONTHS LATER?

I have been on Yasmin for about 8 months, although I did not notice any symptoms initially about three months later I was at my MD. having some real trouble w/ anxiety and panic attacks( I was really troubled by this as I never considered myself an anxious person) He wanted to put me on Paxil and I said no- I would find another way to manage. I joined a gym and this helped alleviate some of the symptoms. It was not until I discovered this website that this all is starting to make sense. However my story gets worse before better. About 1 month ago I started with a series of strange symptoms. Perhaps the most troubling was a constant trembling of my hands! I was also experiencing extreme fatigue, dizziness, and lightheadedness, and strange spots in front of my eyes. (this all got worse after I ate for some reason) Back to the MD again who ran 2 tests, thyroid and blood sugar. Nada! he again recommended Paxil!!! I was so disgusted. Mt co-workers convinced me to try getting off of Yasmin just to see if it would help. I am happy to report, 9 days after stopping my symptoms are starting to subside. My symptoms were very scary... I even started w/ heart palpitations!! Doc said"long term stress" please!!! I'm sorry stress is not to blame for everything. GOODBYE YASMIN and GOOD RIDANCE!!!