I came down with infected elbow bursitis two days ago, and yesterday my doctor prescribed Levaquin, a powerful antibiotic. (That’ll teach me to properly treat and cover my boo-boos so mean old Mr. Bacteria doesn’t come in and set up house.)
It seems to be working; the swelling, pain and fever are diminished. I do have two of the listed side-effects, though (headache and diarrhea). Because I’m a curious fellow, I started looking up other reported side-effects, and they’re kind of scary:
Ruptured tendons. Usually Achilles tendon. Ouchie. Seems to be mostly reported in elderly patients, but still – kind of scary. (And it’s been reported up to a year after taking the Levaquin.) I’ve had a ruptured tendon before; not eager for another one.
Irreversible peripepheral neuropathy. Shit! I like having peripheral vision and don’t want to lose it.
Then I started running into websites devoted to the evils of Levaquin, of all fluoroquinolone antibiotics, or even of all antibiotics of any kind. When it comes to Levaquin, people are alleging all sorts of horrible effects, in such a broad spectrum that it sounds unlikely they could all have the same cause. Some doctors say that Levaquin should be the antibiotic of last resort, and is way over-prescribed.
I don’t know how to separate out the truth here. I’m not really looking for anecdotes here so much as real clinical knowledge. I’ve always been so impressed when a factual question on the SDMB is answered by actual professionals who may ten minutes earlier have been posting about what the best horseriding scene in movies is.
So: As a 48-year-old man, with Type II diabetes but otherwise fairly healthy, currently on a 10-day course of Levaquin, should I realistically be worried about this stuff?
Tendinopathy, for instance, is still so unusual it’s almost reportable. In my business that’s not something worth worrying about.
Pharmaceutical companies have learned the hard way to emphasis the bad stuff. If tendinopathy is that unusual and gets that degree of top billing, what it tells you is that there ain’t much out there.
That’s the simple way to look at it. Of course it’s overprescribed, along with everything else. Another proof that it’s safe. We get by with overprescribing it.
Peripheral neuropathy does not mean loss of peripheral vision; it means damage to the nerves that serve the extremities. Symptoms include numbness/tingling of the feet and hands and loss of protective reflexes and proprioception. Diabetes is a leading cause of peripheral neuropathy; if you want to be quantitative about it, the diabetes is a greater risk factor than the antibiotic use.
This is one of those times when I wonder just how many brain cells I’ve lost. Stopping to think about the words involved, obviously that’s what peripheral neuropathy means; thanks for correcting me.
I think what happened is that I was thinking about one of the horror stories I was reading, in which someone claimed that Levaquin caused them to lose their peripheral vision. Doesn’t keep me from looking like a dumbass, of course, especially since I’m already aware of peripheral nerve damage as a danger of hyperglycemia, which is why I’m trying to keep my blood sugar under control.
I could probably find horror stories on the 'Net about almost any prescription drug. Heck, there are people claiming an amazingly broad spectrum of problems caused by artificial sweeteners.
(Now I’m wondering who Pres. Obama is going to appoint to head the FDA. Sure to be an improvement.)
Remember that most people on the Internet are nuts. And most people hanging out on medical message boards are hypochondriacs or have other issues that make them think they are a lot sicker than they physically are. There is a whole culture of people who spend all their times observing their every single feeling and trying to attribute it to something external. Be it medicine, MSG, chemtrails or whatever.
That said, side-effects do happen. I’ve never had problems in my life with medicine. Then I took some Cipro and it kicked my ass. After my second dose I started having hallucinations (I developed a super sensitive nose and could smell things at great distances), became confused, and was generally wiped out for a couple days. It was pretty intense- most similar to tripping on acid. My symptoms disappeared within a day of stopping treatment.
So my story is going to sound like a horror story. But I recognize it’s probably a pretty rare thing, and these drugs are a pretty important tools medically. There is just no easy way to know how people are going to react. Every day when you cross the street you run the risk of adverse effects. So all you can really do is be informed of the risk and work with your doctor to figure out the best path for you.
Even Sven, sorry you had such a bad experience. So far I’m okay. This stuff must be pretty powerful; the swelling is almost gone from what was a scary-looking elbow.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to hate big pharmaceutical companies, but some of the stuff I read went way off into the bushes.
I took some several years ago for a prostate problem and it was the first medication I every had problems with: It was 100 mg tabs, and after a few I suffered fatigue, insomnia, muscle pain, head & stomach ache, depression. I now list it along with Voltaren as the only two meds from wich ever had bad reactions.
The lowest strength it would be prescribed in is 250. You might want to check your records and be sure. It doesn’t sound like levaquin is what you took, KG.