I took quinolones for ear/sinus infections for years and suddenly lost my hearing in one ear in 2006.  Docs couldn't figure out why and then i suddenly started having chronic hip/back/burning muscle pain in 2008.  I've gone to every doc in the world in every specialty and no one can help me.  I'm 43 yrs old and am cripple like an old lady!  Diagnoses (or lack thereof) have included Epsteins barr/chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia,  bio-toxin illness, etc...

What you wrote struck a chord with me - i think the antibiotics are the cause of my problems!  What can i do if indeed the quinolones caused all this? Is it reversible?  Are there any drugs/supplements/minerals/alternative treatments that can help me?

I've already spend thousands of $$$ trying to feel better.  I can't keep up with my young kids and am in constant burning pain in all the muscles in my body.

Please help me to continue this research - i think you are on to something!

Thanks,

Julie

Julie, unfortunately there is no cure or treatment for the horrific damages these drugs cause.  95% of doctors will laugh in your face if you tell them an antibiotic crippled you.  All I know is that I was 30 years old and TREMENDOUSLY healthy and active before I took just twelve Ciprofloxacin (Cipro) pills in October of 2009 for a *suspected* UTI (no bacteria was ever even found).  I have been unable to walk ever since and have lost absolutely EVERYTHING.  And there are thousands of other victims of these drugs online.  So many in fact that they've set up support groups to try and help one another.  What you have described has "quinolone toxicity" written all over it.  While your physical ailments are very real, the damage these drugs cause is very stealth.  It often doesn't show up on conventional x-rays, MRI's or even blood tests.  This is why doctors start labeling us as having fibromyalgia, CFS--even M.S.!  Cipro/Avelox/Levaquin all induce symptoms that mimic auto-immune disorders.  Since symptoms often come on in a delayed fashion--AFTER you've finished taking the drugs--very few people ever make the connection!  Therefore these reactions go vastly underreported to the FDA.  

The higher the dose or the longer you take a quinolone antibiotic, the greater your chances of becoming "floxed" (the term people use for being poisoned by these awful drugs).  As I said before I've lost everything--my mobility, my independance (had to move back in with my parents clear across the country), my ability to work (I collect SSDI now), my hobbies, my friends, my hopes and dreams, my life savings, my credit is now ruined from all the doctor bills (NO doctor has ever helped me with this).  It's all gone.  I live every minute of every day in bed now.  I honestly wish those pills would have just killed me.  I literally have the body of a 100+ year old now--frail, weak and I injure incredibly easily now.  All this because Bayer wanted to add another $6.00 to their bottom line.  I lost my LIFE to Cipro.  Of all the doctors I've seen only ONE will admit Cipro can and does do this to people (she's an alternative medicine doc who has not been brainwashed by drug reps and the drug industry).  Google "quinolone toxicity" or "floxed" for more info.  Better yet look up the quinolone drugs you've taken on askapatient.com and read all the horror stories from other patients (or, as I call them, unsuspecting victims)!  Chances are many of their stories will be similiar to what you've experienced.  Keep in mind that no two people get hit in the exact same way or to the same severity--quins are capable of wreaking havoc on nearly every system in the body, so no two people ever suffer the exact same damages.  Some get hit worse than others.  Quins have a real propensity to strike connective tissue though--tendons and joints especially--so that's usually a common theme.  What the drug companies are doing with these POISONS is criminal!!! 

 THIS WILL NOT BE A FANCY TYPED LETTER.  I TRY AND PUT A SMILE ON MY FACE.  I SPEND MANY HOURS OF THE DAY WEEPING AND CRYING.I KNOW HOW YOU ARE SUFFERING,  I'VE BEEN SUFFERING FOR A LONG TIME.  HAVE GONE TO SO MANY DOCTORS AND SPECIALIST IT IS NOT FUNNY.  THEY WANT YOU TO FEEL THAT A LOT OF IT IS IN YOUR MIND AND YOUR AGONY IS NOT REAL.  SOME TIMES I FEEL LIKE I AM A HUNDRED AND 25.  I HAVE TAKEN MANY CIPRO'S AND ALL KIND OF ANTIBIOTICS. THEY HAVE TAKEN THE REGULAR TEST FOR LUPUS AND OTHER STUFF.  I HAVE PRAYED, HOPE, WISHED THAT GOD WOULD SEE FIT FOR ME TO BE HEALED.  I DON'T THINK IT'S HAPPENING.  IT IS A LOT OF US OUT THERE, AND IT DIDN'T COME FROM  THE CIPRO. AT 24 I HAD MY FIRST PULMONARY EMBOLIS.  HAD ANOTHER BAD ONE 24 YEARS LATER.I THOUGHT THAT WAS AN OLD FOLK DISEASE.  ALMOST 2 YEARS  AGO MY ARMS AND BACK WERE HURTING SO BAD THEY PUT ME IN THE NUT HOUSE IN THE HOSPITAL, IN THERE FOR 2 WEEKS.  WENT HOME THE SAME WAY I WENT IN. A YEAR AGO I HAD PNUEMONIA, CARBON MO. POISIONING AND SUGAR SKY HIGH.  I WAS IN 2 DAYS AND OTHER CARE WAS ADMINISTERD AT HOME, OXYEN,NURSES ETC.  I HAVE LOST EVERYTHING TOO.  I HAVE HAD SO MANY MISFORTUNES, I CANNOT GO YHROUGH IT ALL.  DON'T LET ME FORGET MY POOR KNEES, BURNING. THIGHS BURNS AND HAS HARD KNOTS THAT CAUSE SO MUCH PAIN.  I'M TIRED OF THE BED MOST OF THE TIME THAT IS WHERE I AM.  HAVE MERY ON ME, LORD AND THESE OTHER SOLDIRES.

Sirporah Hughes, your health problems may not be as a result of taking Cipro, but mine are.  How are you so certain antibiotics aren't to blame for your ailments?  You yourself say you've taken Cipro (and many other antibiotics) many times and now suffer from "mysterious" chronic pain and health problems that do not show up on any tests.  That is EXACTLY WHAT CIPRO CAUSES!!!  I am 32 years old and literally feel like I'm 132.  My body has been DESTROYED, and it's 100% as a result of Ciprofloxacin.  Cipro is by no means the only antibiotic that can cause this, either.  ALL fluoroquinolone antibiotics are capable of destroying the human body.  These include Cipro, Levaquin and Avelox (those are the most common).  More than half of the antibiotics in this class have already been yanked from the market for their horrific safety profiles.  And let me tell you, the ones that are left are no less destructive!  These drugs are absolute POISON and the fact that their destruction evades modern testing allows them to stay on the market despite the countless lives that have been destroyed by them. 

JEFF AND JULIE, SUFFERING IS MY MIDDLE NAME.  I WATCHED MY ONLY SISTER SUFFER AND DIE.  WE WERE JUST ONE YEAR APART I'M THE OLDEST.  SOMETHING TORE HER BODY APART FROM HER HEAD TO HER TOES.  TOWARD THE END,SHE WAS AT HOME WITH I V'S IN HER FOR MONTHS WITH ANTIBIOTICS.  SHE HAD THRUSH, HER TOUNGE AND THROAT WOULD NOT LET HER SLEEP, EAT, OR BE COMFORTABLE.  HER JAW WOULD LOCK UP FOR UP TO A WEEK AT A TIME.  IT WAS SO SAD AND DESTROYED ME!  SIX WEEKS LATER MY ONLY SON WAS MURDERED IN FRONT OF MY HOME.  MY BROTHER TOOK HIS ON LIFE.  MY MOM AND DAD SUFFERED AND THEY DIED.  MY HUSBAND TOLD ME A MONTH AGO THAT HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY FEELING FOR ME ANYMORE AND THAT  HE HATED ME.  A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, I COULD NOT STAND TO BE TOUCHED OR PUT PRESSURE ON ME IN A LOT OF PLACES.  I DEVELOPED A SKIN CONDITION CALLED LICHEN PLANUS, MAN DID I SUFFER WITH IT ATE MY FEET AND LEGS TO THE BONES.  IHAD IT OTHER PLACES TOO FOR 3 YEARS,  I WAS TOLD BY DOCTORS THAT IT WOULD LAST FOR 12 TO 18 MONTHS.  I HAD IT FOR 3 YEARS.

Oh and regarding your question about whether there are any drugs/supplements/minerals/alternative treatments that helps with this--unfortunately from my experience I have to say no.  I've spent literally thousands of dollars on every supplement under the sun (I spent the first six months of this nightmare reading other peoples' horror stories and every time they'd mention a supplement I'd buy it!).  None of it did a damn thing.  Some people will swear up and down that a supplement or some alternative treatment helped them.  For most of those people, I suspect they'd have gotten better with or without it.  Many people do get better from quinolone toxicity over time, but it's often a LONG time.  We're talking years.  It all depends on how severely you were hit.  I just want to warn you because as soon as you start researching quinolone toxicity you'll likely run into all kinds of flox victims who will say "X" "Y" and "Z" helped them.  From my experience it's all hogwash.  And unfortunately doctors--the very people who CAUSE this--are of absolutely NO help correcting it.  I think it's unconscionable that Cipro's warning label states, "If you develop any tendon problems see your doctor immediately"--implying that a doctor can actually do something about this.  Then you go to the doctor and they LAUGH or roll their eyes at you!!!  Unbelievable.  It's like being in the twilight zone.