Levaquin and anger

The medical professional is particularly unhelpful in this matter. Talking with medical personnel about fluoroquinolone poisoning is a go-nowhere exercise. In an era when Monsanto genetically-modifies our seed stock you might think medical caregivers would advise us in advance that their prescription antibiotics mess around with their patients' DNA. (IT's that deregulation thing, yes?)

I experienced painful calves and a strange dream, possibly a nightmare, immediately, e.g., on the very same night, after having injested one Levaquin dosage for a prostate condition and maybe a year after separately having taken cipro for a week to combat traveler's diarrhea. The post-Levaquin early evening dream was strange insofar as I rarely drempt, and I never recall having been roused to wakefulness by a dream shortly after having gone to bed. Early on I did NOT associate Levaquin with the really terrible symptoms that I experienced within 60 days of having injested Levaquin.

My wheels fell off when I entered a period of insomnia. I thought my sleeplessness was stress-related because my health history includes a major depressive episode 11 years ago. I presented myself for help to a psychiatrist who prescribed a small dose of an atypical antipsychotic as a sleeping aid. My drug-induced sleep felt like a coma that lasted each night for a couple of hours. There were heart palpitations, agitation, panic attacks, racing heart, racing thoughts, insomnia, depression, paranoia, poor cognition, body shuddering, muscle twitching, night sweats, and pain in both Achilles heals. The symptoms filled a note book page. I felt like Jean D'Arc who was being burned chemically at the stake from the inside out. I would rise in the morning and then minutes later fall back into bed. I could stare off into space and completely lose track of time. I could not even find the right words in mid-sentence. I could not fill-in the registration papers when I presented myself for a second opinion at Mayo Clinic. I became a full babbling idiot. My wife said that I had retreated or devolved into some kind of primate or ape who communicated solely his emotional states by means of eye contact only.

I asked my doctors if the sum of levaquin and cipro had pushed me over my peak quinolone tolerance level. Or was it the medicine that the psychiatrist had prescribed to make me sleep? . I was no stranger to depression and I knew my symptoms were not merely emotional or psychological in nature. Why did I always feel as if I had been poisoned? The psychiatrist decided my paranoia warranted higher med levels. I declined the advice and stopped taking the meds altogether. My anxiety today is lower, my sleep is improved but fitfull. My neck aches. My head feels as if it were in a vise. It's not a headache and it's not painful, but there is a tingling, crawling, scorching sensation at my forehead and behind my eyes as if someone had beat me with a pillow and then filled my head with novocaine.

I'm not sure there's a moral to the story. It might sound a tad over-the-top, but I think we're faced by a pharmaceutical plague. There's really no excuse for the absence of informed consent. There is nowhere above ground, e.g., nowhere on main street, and no-one with whom you can speak in order to take the full measure of fluoroquinolone poisoning. If you are at this URL merely to find out about the FDA's recent black box warning re: Levaquin's link to ruptured tendons, you are in for peep into hell. Read the other thousands of postings on this site, and decide for yourself who bears the ring of truth.

It's 2 am on my 7th day of taking Levaquin. I was prescribed the antibiotic after being diagnosed with a UTI. I still have a UTI even though I am finished with my dose. I am awake not because of insomnia, but because I've had my 5th nightmare this week. This one was so bad I woke up screaming and crying. I went outside for some air to try to cool off. I still felt terrible anger for the people in my nightmare and really felt like I was ready for the psych ward. Finally it hit me, the only thing I've done differently this week is taking Levaquin. These nightmares are intolerable! One was understandable I suppose but every night two bad nightmares a night! And these aren't just "someones chasing you" nightmares...these are terrors! After figuring this out I would stop taking this right away if I wasn't finished already. No one I know will ever take this medicine, I will tell everyone of this crazy medicine.

I was given a 10 day dose of LEVAQUIN for a mild bronchitis/respiratory ailment on Jan. 29, 2008. I took 1 500mg pill for the full ten days. Three days after I stopped taking this medication, I experienced incredibly painful swelling in both knees. I could barely walk, and couldn't bend my knees. I was scared, upset, and in absolute misery. I spent a week literally throwing myself backwards onto chairs. It was unbelievable. When I could finally get to my normal health care provider 5 days later, she immediately identified the culprit as the Levaquin I had taken. She said she knew it to cause people's tendons to burst. It was obvious since it was both knees that it was not an injury and I never had any other problem with my legs. I am, or shall I say I was an avid walker. I was told to see an orthopedic doctor if I had not improved in one week. I had not improved in a week. The orthopedic doctor sent me for an MRI which showed irreversible, permanent cartilage damage in my left knee. The right knee he didn't MRI at the time, saying he could determine what he needed to know from the one knee and would only be able to do corrective surgery on my knees in 6 week intervals. This horrible drug has permanently altered my way of life. I was a 53 year old active, ambulatory adult who would walk miles a day. Two months later, I still have constant knee pain, cannot stand for long periods of time without leaning on something and can no longer kneel, etc. I can only walk around a bit and if I'm on my feet for long periods of time I experience knee, ankle pain and swelling. I sent a report to the FDA who obviously cares nothing about this situation, since I'm not the only unsuspecting person to have this happen. I've been studying this drug now and there was evidence in animal clinical trials of joint and tendon damage, To me it would have been no different an experience if someone had come up and hit me with a baseball bat across both knees. I am permanently damaged from Levaquin. I think it's criminal this drug is given to younger ambulatory adults at all.