This personal story was originally posted to the Quinolone Adverse Reaction Forum. If you are a victim of a quinolone antibiotic and need support or advice then please visit the Quinolone Adverse Reaction Forum (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quinolones/).
 

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This personal story was originally posted to the Quinolone Adverse Reaction Forum. If you are a victim of a quinolone antibiotic and need support or advice then please visit the Quinolone Adverse Reaction Forum (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quinolones/).

Levaquin
Posted on 22 February 2002
Once a month or 2, I have been posting my Levaquin ADR experience, mostly of a personal reference for me, but also if anyone else is interested, I would like to share.

Lets see. I was a healthy 32 year old male and I took Levaquin for a prostate problem and was on it for 1 1/2 months with no symptoms. But one day I felt real tired, and something was not right. The next day I found my whole left side was numb and tingling. Later that night I had a huge panic attack out of nowhere. I quit taking the Levaquin right away. I had 3 more horrible panic attacks during the next week, one lasting almost a full day. I also had burning sensations, like a sunburn come and go through out my body in this amount of time. Urologist said he has seen this before from these drugs, and said it would take around 6-8 weeks to get over it. Another doctor I went to prescribed me Paxil for my nerves, but I researched it and found that Paxil might be addictive, so I threw it away, and faced the nightmare head on.

After 3 weeks, the panic attacks were gone, and I just felt jittery, anxiety sometimes, and my left hand had the shakes. Blurry vision, sun burn feeling comes and gos, but not that bad.

I found this forum, and through wonderful advice, I started taking supplements and I think it helped me get much better.

By the end of the 2nd month, I felt almost normal again. The sunburn feeling almost went away for good it seemed, jittery feeling subsiding, anxiety was almost gone. I did have a small rach appear on my face a couple times, and then disappear. It felt like a sunburn. My cloudy vision went away. I thought things were going great..When BAM!!

One day I woke up out of the blue 2 months after I quit Levaquin, and I had muscle aches and pains all over. Hands are the worst. Not to mention knees, feet and shoulders. I thought I was going to lose my job, hell everything from this latest nightmare. But I am able to work somehow, though very painful at times, and have a wonderful girlfriend, family and friends who help me out try and understand why I complain soo much.. LOL And help get me through this mess..( Thank you God for these people, and this forum)

Well it has been a total of 4 months, first set of symptoms ( Anxiety, sunburn feeling) are almost gone completely. I have had bad muscle weakness, pains for the last 2 months now, and it might be slowly improving.. but I am not really sure, I think I might just be getting used to feeling like someone who just got hit by a bus. I have now noticed my left eye has blurry vision, which was NEVER the case before with me. I have always had excellent vision. I have an appointment wth a Neurologist in a couple weeks, to start a round of tests. I went to my other doctor last week for the muscle condition, and he said I have signs of nerve damage possibally. Simple tests like I squeezed his hand, and my arm started shaking bad.. I was shocked.. He then applied pressure to my wrist, and my arm again started shaking. Wierd. He was the doc who tried to prescribe me Paxil earlier and swore Levaquin could not possibally cause ANY of my problems, even when I mentioned that my Urologist said he has seen side effects like panic attacks before with Levaquin. But he said before we go on a witchhunt for Levaquin ADRs, we should rule everything else out first. So he referred me to the Neurologist. He also told me that MS or Lupus can happen suddenly like how my symptoms appeared. So I am not out to convince any doc, but I feel that I should rule out all other possibilities, even though I KNOW Levaquin fried my system.

Things that make me wonder..

Why is it that some people like me can take the drug for a long time with no problems, and then one day get hammered by ADRs?

While others take just one pill and get fried by these drugs.

Why is it that for some people the muscle problems concentrate on one muscle group , like the heels, while others like me have tendonitis all over?

Why did it take 2 full months after STOPPING the drug for some people like me to see Muscle ADRs, while others see it right away?

I know there are no answers for my questions, and that is the worst part it seems for me. We are on our own, kicked to the curb with this nightmare, and the medical community is clueless on the problems with this drug. Only time will tell I guess.

Oh well, Sorry for the long post. Kevin

Originally posted on the Quinolone Adverse Reaction Forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quinolones/message/6881