I took 7 days of a 28 day course of Ofloxacin in November 2007
Had to stop the meds due to intense pain in my knees and shoulders.
4 weeks in: -
hardly walk with severe swellings in knees , ankles and hips.
6 weeks in: -
Toxic psychosis, depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts
9 months in: -
Pain in joints and muscles, tendons popping in every single joint but worse in spine.
Chronic back pain
Worsening of pre existing Tinnitus
Burning sensations on hands and feet.
Flushing sensations
Bee like stings all over
Feeling of being cold even in hot weather.
Urinary problems
New symptoms manifest themselves every week
Symptoms are progressive and not transient as stated in the prescribing literature.
I am 43 but feel like 63.
If you have Prostatitis or any infection that HAS NOT been cultured refuse Fluoroquinolones until they can confirm its life or death, honest it is just not worth the risk.
BE WARNED YOU QUALITY OF LIFE MAY DEPEND UPON IT!!!!!!!!!!!

One feature of this class of drugs(fluoroquinolones) is that the damage they cause may very well be permanent. The only reference to permanence I could find on the label is referring to permanent neuropathy. The tendon ruptures, the PN, many of the other debilitating symptoms are also permanent.
“stop taking the drug and call your doctor” the warning says - but that may be too late for alot of people.
Another thing: the ADRs for these drugs may appear months after you take them. This is what happened to me. I took avelox in March 2005 for a sinus infection, and in early June I started feeling the ADRS; fatigue, vision problems, neuropathy, dehydration, tinnitis, insomnia. I had no idea what was causing it, and the med. community was no help. They don’t diagnose for ADRs to FQs or any other drug. So patients get mis-diagnosed.

I feel this is nothing short of a health crisis in this country. Between doctors being ignorant and misinformed about these drugs and the FDA doing nothing, we have a problem on our hands!

rick

I have researched this drug and am taking natural supplements to see if they help. The pharmasist says that this is seen in people taking levaquin, but generally younger, I am 50. I was in tip top shape before this medication. I can walk, but my legs are sore, become weak and tired, my knees ache, elbow, hands, shoulders etc. My feet tingle and there is a tight feeling in them and in my legs and pain in my hip. I feel like an old lady instead of the vital person I was a week ago. Interestingly, the woman who called from the neurologist’s office to schedule the EMG asked why I was having it done and I told her. She was shocked said she had been on Levaquin a few years ago and has felt awful on and off. She has had a battery of tests done with no conclusive answers. She also is 50 and feels like an old woman. In talking, she came to the conclusion that she is suffering from Levaquin as well and was going to research it. I told her read what people write not what the pharmaceutical company writes. My bottle that I got last week had no warning on it for tendons, just sun a dizziness!

If my symptoms do not clear up I am going to pursue this legally. I think the FDA has to take this medication off of the market before other healthy, innocent people are left inconpacitated.

my husband was given this drug by same dr. and after 4 days his back aches, i told him to tell dr of it, he is there at this moment. i will not ever take this drug again and its on my drug allergy list, i have told others beware. thxs

This is an over prescribed drug that in some people can cause long lasting symptoms. Other drugs should be given instead, leaving these antibiotics for last resort use only.

Seena

I believe it captures the concerns of those who have been injured by this class and hence a relevant comment to this story, as well as adds the facts that have been deliberately excluded by the FDA within their press release:

Tendon rupture is the least of the patient’s concerns. This class is associated with irreversible peripheral neuropathy, fatal liver and kidney damage, fatal hypo and hyperglycemia, SJS and TEN, toxic psychosis, spontaneous ruptures not only of the tendons but also muscles, ligaments and cartilage, the list of serious adrs is boundless. More than half of the drugs found in this class have been removed from clinical practice due to severe and even fatal adverse reactions.

I just received a report of a 14year old male who tore the cartilage in both knees requiring extensive surgical intervention as a result of being on levaquin to treat a nail infection. Not to mention they young lady who has been in a wheelchair for the past decade due to the damage done to her tendons which rendered them beyond surgical repair. She was given cipro for an earache.

Within the NDA (new drug application) for levofloxacin we find clinical studies that revealed an adr rate in excess of 40% (one or more reactions) and a number of listed fatalities. We find these same numbers with all the NDAs for this class. This tendon issue we are now discussing was first revealed to the FDA back in 1982 (bailey et al). The FDA did NOTHING until Public Citizen filed a petition in 1996 seeking both black box warnings and dear doctor letters. The FDA did neither. Another petition was filed by the Attorney General of the State of Illinois in 2005 seeking these same actions. In 2006 Public Citizen once again petitioned the FDA. Rather than respond to these petitions as required by law, the FDA stonewalled the petitioners for more than three years. It was not until suit was filed in Federal Court by Public Citizen to compel the FDA to respond to these petitions did the FDA do anything.

And what they did was nothing more than a ’slap to the face’ to those of us who have had our lives destroyed by these drugs. It is far too little, far too late. And we would not even be tossed this ‘bone’ if this lawsuit were not pending. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt by the FDA to avoid full disclosure of the true safety profile of this class which will be required when they lose in Federal Court.

Bayer issued a European “Dear Doctor Letter” in February of 2008 in regards to fatal liver injury as a result of being on Avelox. Yet we see no such letter being issued here in the States, nor do we see the FDA requesting one either. This class has been crippling and killing patients since the mid sixties. For more than forty years now the FDA has hidden the true safety profile from both the patient as well as the treating physician.

Those who have an interest in reading this forty years worth of medical journal entries, case reports, newspaper articles, clinical studies, etc., that documents all that I state here are invited to log unto http://www.fqresearch.org The FDA is also grossly misleading when they state that the risk factor is one in one hundred thousand. The actual risk is .5% to 16% depending upon which citation you prefer to reference as well as the year in which it was published.

I find the manufacturers to be grossly misleading the patient and physician alike when they state that this class is a safe and effective antibiotic with minimum side effects. I have forty years worth of medical documentation that proves that they are anything but for those who care to read it, rather than this line of misleading and false information being provided by the FDA.

Mr. David T. Fuller
Director
Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Research Foundation
http://www.fqresearch.org
fqresearch@aol.com
davidtfull@aol.com