My Story

Symtoms During Treatment

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One week after delivering my baby boy, I developed a serious pneumonia and was readmitted to the hospital.  Along with many other medications, I was given Levofloxacin 750 mg IV with a dose of steroid.  A sputum culture to determine sensitivity to various antibiotics was not done and Levofloxacin was continued when I was discharged because of its broad coverage.  I was never warned about any of the serious side effects that could occur.

While the drug was being given in the hospital, I had pain in all of the tendons in my hands and feet, to the point that it was difficult for me to walk normally or operate my breast pump. 

I also noted paresthesias (pins and needles sensation) in my forearms and hands.

After a couple of days taking the Levaquin, I bent forward to reach for my son and felt something "pop" in my mid/upper back.  I had excruciating pain that really prevented me from using my right arm for about 8 weeks.  This was presumably a torn muscle attachment.  I couldn't lift my arm, sit up, take a deep breath, etc without horrible pain.  

Since my husband and I are both physicians, we had a vague understanding that Levaquin and the other fluoroquinolones can cause tendon damage or tendon rupture.  What I did not realize though, is that
these problems, along with many others, can persist for months or years after treatment or, in some cases, can even be PERMANENT!


Long Term Harm

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I am now 11 months out from the Levaquin fiasco and I continue to have debilitating back pain.  My initial tendon symptoms resolved about a month after stopping the Levaquin, but then returned with a vengeance about 7 months later.  I am developing new tendon pains every few days, in various locations including my shoulders, elbows, hands, knees, ankles, and feet.

I found little relief from Tylenol, Advil, or Celebrex and eventually moved on to Tramadol.  I am in so much pain when I wake up in the mornings that I have to take the Tramadol just to get out of bed. Even with the medications, I am in constant pain and struggle every day to care for my beautiful baby. When I lift him, it feels like my joints are going to tear apart at the shoulders and elbows.  The only time I can relieve my back pain is when I am flat on my back in the playroom.  I cry almost every day out of pain and frustration that this drug has robbed me of my health and my chance to enjoy my son's infancy.  And NO...I DON'T HAVE POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION.  I have constant, horrible, pain.

In addition to the pain, I have profound memory loss.  After basing my career on my ability to absorb and memorize massive amounts of complex information, I am extremely frustrated when I talk and have word-finding difficulties, can't remember names or places, and have difficulty describing something that I just read.

Less debilitating, but still new and abnormal, my body "jerks" as I try to fall asleep at night. This feels like muscle twitches, mainly in my trunk, but also in my extremities.

When I wake up during the night with my son, my eyes are so dry that it is hard for me to open them.

Overall, I feel like I am 100 years old.

To the average person, these symptoms probably seem like the rantings of a hypochondriac and are probably unrelated to the Levaquin.  I felt that way too until I found all of the other patients like me online and they describe the exact same symptomatolgy commonly with the addition of excruciating neuropathic pain, permanent vision impairment, ringing ears, and several other devastating injuries.