My doctor had me on a 10-day course of amoxicillin for a sinus in...

My doctor had me on a 10-day course of amoxicillin for a sinus infection. By the last day, I had contracted pneumonia and the sinus infection had rebounded until it was worse than ever. So, like many others who have posted here, my doctor prescribed Avelox. Fortunately I read the entire printout from the pharmacy, including all warnings of potential side-effects, both minor and serious. I grew concerned on day three when I had numbness and tingling all down my right arm, and following the warnings, called my doctor. Fortunately, my doc is a smart guy: he told me to stop the course of Avelox immediately, and if the nerve symptoms returned, I should go to the ER. Some of the symptoms others here have mentioned -- many far, far more serious than mine -- seem neurological, as if the drug is also messing with brain function rather than just causing an allergic reaction (especially the seriously altered mental states). A symptom that has occurred occasionally during the past weeks since I stopped the Avelox is an odd tremor in my eyes when I'm tired. My eyeballs shake quickly and sharply from side to side for about 10 seconds at a time. I had a similar reaction many years ago, when my doctor at the time prescribed a high dose of Paxil (anti-anxiety). The difference was that then the eye tremors stopped two days after I stopped the drug; the symptoms now started long after the Avelox was out of my system. I linked to this webpage specifically because I was wondering how common adverse reactions to Avelox are. God knows we need some new antibiotics to fight the increasingly more resistant strains of bacteria. But if our bad experiences are as common as I fear, even though some people experience wonderful results, this is one drug that should be prescribed with extreme care. Not only that, but both the physician and the pharmacist should be especially diligent in explaining the more dangerous adverse effects so that patients (who don't always have a half hour to read through hundreds of single-spaced lines of instructions on drug sheets) are well-informed enough to participate in our own care. If that just means telling our doctors that the risks outweigh the benefits, please prescribe something else, so be it.