Fluoroquinolones (including ciprofloxacin)

MarcNotMark

MarcNotMark

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Commonly prescribed drugs called fluoroquinolones cause rare, disabling side effects. Researchers are struggling to work out why.


In 2014, Miriam van Staveren went on holiday to the Canary Islands and caught an infection. Her ear and sinuses throbbed, so she went to see the resort doctor, who prescribed a six-day course of the popular antibiotic levofloxacin. Three weeks later, after she had returned home to Amsterdam, her Achilles tendons started to hurt, then her knees and shoulders. She developed shooting pains in her legs and feet, as well as fatigue and depression. “I got sicker and sicker,” she says. “I was in pain all day.” Previously an active tennis player and hiker, the 61-year-old physician could barely walk, and had to climb the stairs on all fours.

Since then, she has seen a variety of medical specialists. Some dismissed her symptoms as psychosomatic. Others suggested diagnoses of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. Van Staveren is in no doubt, however. She’s convinced that the antibiotic poisoned her.

She’s not alone. Levofloxacin is one of a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones, some of the world’s most commonly prescribed antibiotics. In the United States in 2015, doctors doled out 32 million prescriptions for the drugs, making them the country’s fourth-most popular class of antibiotic. But for a small percentage of people, fluoroquinolones have developed a bad reputation. On websites and Facebook groups with names such as Floxie Hope and My Quin Story,thousands of people who have fallen ill after fluoroquinolone treatment gather to share experiences. Many of them describe a devastating and progressive condition, encompassing symptoms ranging from psychiatric and sensory disturbances to problems with muscles, tendons and nerves that continue after people have stopped taking the drugs. They call it being ‘floxed’.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03267-5


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I will go to my grave knowing that I did not have ME/CFS until three days after starting on a "skookum" dose of Penicillin. That is when my ME kicked in, and within the year, allergies and Chronic Sinusitis.
 
Same here. I was having some bowel problems and a few allergies and intollerances. I then was prescribed cipro for a misdiagnosed bowel infection and that triggered my ME. It made me sick as a dog and i wanted to stop using it but the physician kept pushing me i had to finish the course or she would drop me as a patient.
I've never been the same since.
Now i have no more life. Thank you.
 
Trish said:
Hi @Thinktank, welcome to the forum. I'm sorry to hear you have had such a devastating effect from this drug.
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Welcome @Thinktank and great to see you over here. You know my story already but a neurotoxic reaction to Levaquin was the very beginning of my entire illness and the first trigger in a series of hits to my immune system. Hoping for the day that Levaquin is banned from the planet.
 
Little Bluestem said:
I didn’t know fluoroquinolones caused psychiatric and sensory disturbances along with the physical problems. :arghh: Why on earth are they still allowed to sell them.
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Because they are an enormous money maker for Ortho-McNeil/Johnson & Johnson. They are one of the top drugs in the US (maybe worldwide, I am not sure) which shows that they are given out like candy if a drug that you take for seven days is given as frequently as a med that someone would take daily (365 days/year).
 
Not sure what kind of antibiotics were prescribed for me when I first got ill in 2006, but it was for two mycoplasma lung infections (following a strep infection, what a fun summer that was) which apparently is one of the most common uses of floxie.
 
https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm611032.htm
FDA said:
FDA reinforces safety information about serious low blood sugar levels and mental health side effects with fluoroquinolone antibiotics; requires label changes

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is strengthening the current warnings in the prescribing information that fluoroquinolone antibiotics may cause significant decreases in blood sugar and certain mental health side effects. The low blood sugar levels can result in serious problems, including coma, particularly in older people and patients with diabetes who are taking medicines to reduce blood sugar. We are making these changes because our recent review found reports of life-threatening low blood sugar side effects and reports of additional mental health side effects.
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The MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority) has now issued a formal warning to health professionals and introduced new prescribing regulations.


“Disabling, long-lasting or potentially irreversible adverse reactions affecting musculoskeletal and nervous systems have been reported very rarely with fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Fluoroquinolone treatment should be discontinued at the first signs of a serious adverse reaction, including tendon pain or inflammation.”
MHRA Website Announcement – 21 March 2019
 
Finally this is happening in Germany!

Although the guidelines already restricted the use of fluorquinolones in minor infections (like sinusitis, cystitis), most docs seemed not aware of this, nor of possible severe, chronic side effects.

Today the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices published their risk assessment and a "red-hand-letter" (urgent safety information).

The red-hand-letter also requests to report adverse reactions.
 
Oral fluoroquinolones and risk of fibromyalgia ... not found
• The risk of fibromyalgia with FQs is similar to the risk with amoxicillin and azithromycin.
• This risk might be due to the infectious condition for which FQs are prescribed.
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These data indicate that the possible association between FQs and fibromyalgia is possibly due to the viral or bacterial infection for which they are prescribed.

This is corroborated by a number of studies that have shown that fibromyalgia might be triggered by an infectious process
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disabling conditions related to tendons, muscles, joints and nerves, and fibromyalgia ... an elevated risk with FQs and tendon rupture, peripheral neuropathy and carpal tunnel syndrome nerves, and fibromyalgia .. multitude of adverse events including fibromyalgia-like disabling symptoms of fatigue, severe muscle weakness and atrophy ...
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Received 22 March 2018; Revised 26 August 2018; Accepted 8 September 2018
Correspondence Mahyar Etminan, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, The University of British Columbia
https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/bcp.13765
 
When trying to find out how long ciprofloxacin might last in the body, I came across this paper:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2012/374212/
Accumulation and Elimination of Enrofloxacin and Ciprofloxacin in Tissues of Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei under Laboratory and Farm Conditions

It seems that Enrofloxacin is routinely added to the feed of shrimps, and other species farmed in aquaculture to control disease.

Two to fourteen days were necessary to eliminate both antibiotics from muscular tissue and four to more fourteen days for complete elimination of the antibiotics from the hepatopancreas. These results should be considered in terms of minimum concentrations necessary to inhibit Vibrio bacteria to determine whether the current use of this antibiotic is effective in controlling disease.
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One alternative to treating bacterial infections in aquaculture is to use antibiotics during cultivation, as is common in shrimp aquaculture. Enrofloxacin, oxytetracycline, and florfenicol are among the most commonly used antibiotics during shrimp cultivation and are commonly mixed into food pellets; however, the inappropriate use of these compounds can result in accumulation of residual antibiotic in tissue and contribute to the emergence of resistant bacteria via residual antibiotics persisting in the sediment.
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There's at least a couple of very good reasons there to find out the details of antibiotic use in the production of human food in an aquaculture system before consuming the products.
 
Hutan said:
When trying to find out how long ciprofloxacin might last in the body, I came across this paper:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2012/374212/
Accumulation and Elimination of Enrofloxacin and Ciprofloxacin in Tissues of Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei under Laboratory and Farm Conditions

It seems that Enrofloxacin is routinely added to the feed of shrimps, and other species farmed in aquaculture to control disease.




There's at least a couple of very good reasons there to find out the details of antibiotic use in the production of human food in an aquaculture system before consuming the products.
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Regarding this post I want to share my results after SIX years of stopping Ciprofloxacin
(The Polysorbate is from a drug I take daily)
630753BE-9D7A-4686-AA5C-942CD70A9EA5.jpeg
 
Hutan said:
That's interesting @paused_me. How credible is the test? 'Intracellular electrical capacity - in lymphocytes' - how does that work?

May I ask: Did a clinician order the test? How are they proposing to use the results?
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Yes my GP ordered the test.
Why I think it's somehow reliable - if not completely exact maybe - is because it shows high amounts of Ciprofloxacin and Polysorbat 80. I added other Parameters to check if it's reliable bc they are not of concern in my case and I wanted to see of only these two come out elevated. And they did.
 
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