Hi. thanks so much for responding. I have started my six month of taking
> that terrible pill. I am in excruciating pain- tendons, joints, burning all
> over from the inside,pain in fingers, hands are numb,ringing ears, hair
> falling out. I am aware af the things you are talking about- I don't eat
> anything including meat that isn't organic and I eat mainly veggies, and
> whey protein drinks along with a lot of vitamins. I wasn't aware of the
> gelatin in vitamins but not sure if that is enough to give me all this pain-
> I think it is just what the initial drug did. I am on a few support group
> sites where people did and are getting better- very slowly. I am so worried
> I won't get better. I sometimes read about the people who don't and I freak
> out. I have still managed to teach second grade through all this but I am
> now out for the summer- I am feeling worse than before but people say that
> month 4-6 are usually the worst and then it slowly starts getting better. I
> don't know what to believe. Were you this bad and did your thumbs stop being
> numb after a while?
>
Quote:
Originally Posted by QuicklyML
Hi Felice. So sorry to hear about your experience. I had terrible Levaquin toxicity in May 2008. It has been a long haul to get reasonably back to normal. I had a serious sinus infection on the left side, but it took having a root canal retreated twice, 4 different antibiotics and finally a CT scan before they figured out what was causing the excruciating pain in the roof of my mouth. I was so sick that at the point that they put me on Levaquin for 2 weeks and after day 2 I told my husband I felt like I was being poisoned, I didn't make the connection and continued the full course. By the time I finished, I still had the infection, but could not long use my thumbs to even turn a page and couldn't walk because of my achilles. My back and neck hurt, terrible noise sensivity and racing heart. I was very lucky that my physical therapist had just seen 2 healthy female runners that had both blown out their achille's after taking Cipro for a UTI. If he hadn't told me about the Levaquin connection when I went to internist the next week and had blood work done, she would have told me I had Lupus since I had a positive ANA with pattern. It was drug induced and once I got the drug out of my system my blood went back to normal. Now for the bad news. It was a very long learning curve trying to figure out what I needed to do. The first thing I found that helped me was Magnesium, in theory it binds to the drug and then you excrete it. The only meat, fish, eggs and dairy have to be organic, as this is the antibiotic that is so prevalent in our food supply. I did pretty well with that but was still having problems and then realized that all of the supplements I take were either in gelatin capsules or if tablets they have lactose in them. After 3 years I finally feel like I know how to not get re-exposed, but it is difficult. I know immediately because I get very halting speech and I will reinjure something in the next few days after exposure. The only way for me to eat out was to get Vegan, and even then you can't always trust that they will comply. About 6 months ago I read the book "Eating Animals" Jonathan Safran Foer and now I'm vegetarian at home, Vegan when out. My husband hated that I was limiting myself when the past three years have been so limiting but suddenly I feel better. I no longer feel like such a victum. It isn't really changing how I can eat since I was already so limited by the levaquin, but at least it is now my choice. I hope this helps a little. I will be happy to answer any questions you might have. I've considered going before congress to try to get this drug taken off the market. The problem is that even when 6 months after I had this all of a sudden it was on the news about the black box warning. Drs listened momentarily, then the drug reps came by and told them it was a few really old people and no big deal. So they went right back to prescribing and whenever anyone mentions it they assume you have just jumped on the bandwagon and don't give you alot of credence.
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