It’s now two years since I took Ciprofloxacin for a suspected prostate infection, two years since my life was turned upside down, two years I’ve in many ways lost. Yet still, after two years I am not fixed, not back to my old self and sadly still suffering daily with issues. So I wanted to blog an update and also some thoughts and ramblings related to all this.
A couple of weeks ago I provided an update and that was largely focused on the repeated heart palpitations and pain episodes. Things have continued to go up and down although I do feel a little better in recent days. My GP has written to the Cardiologist to try and get me in more quickly to do a few more tests and I have a 24 hour ECG booked for 2nd June.
So what do I think is going on? The reality is it could be many things or indeed a combination of many things.
- The worse case scenario is that there is some underlying health condition related to the heart or arteries causing Angina like pains however I’m not really sure that’s the problem.
- Another plausible option is that I am having sporadic problems with the Vagus nerve and the heart is getting random electrical triggers caused by some completely unrelated benign episode elsewhere in the body. That is a real possibility as there are many accounts in the “Floxed” community of similar symptoms caused by the Vagus nerve.
- Another again contributing factor will be stress of which I have many and varied! There’s no doubt the anxiety caused by on-going health problems feeds into this causing a cycle of more anxiety and more stress.
- Floxing itself may well be a contributor and I tell you why, the muscle degradation and collagen depletion that I have experienced all over my body could quite easily have affected the heart, which is of course a hugely important muscle! Maybe the Cipro damage has simply weakened the heart as it has all of my other muscles.
Unlike the doctors, we are the only people who can monitor ourselves 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Now it is true that our perceptions can be affected by our emotions and worries so it’s important we are cautious in our judgements and also that we don’t let ourselves be skewed by stories of others symptoms or conditions. However it is important to take note of the mental and physical symptoms we get, try to come to some distinction about their origins and triggers and relay that information to our doctors.
Now many of us struggle in that last aspect, taking the information to our doctors. Often it is the case that the doctors fail to listen or take our evidence seriously. It’s clear many frown upon self diagnosis and individual research and I accept to some degree that it is too easy to latch on to one symptom then the next and self diagnose cancer or a tumour or some other horrendous condition. That being said, a doctor should also not rule those conditions out without thorough investigation. If I go to the doctor with frequent heart issues then you expect to have that investigated, and to be honest fairly quickly! Luckily my GP has been good in that respect although It does sometime feel like he would rather I went away and didn’t keep turning up with more issues!
And herein lies another problem with people with unexplained illnesses and conditions, the word “unexplained”. Why do we keep going back to our doctors? Because we don’t have a satisfactory explanation and treatment option. Often the doctor will focus on one aspect, perform some tests for that, the usual scenario is doing a full blood count because they are not sure what to do with you! If you do have specific symptoms then you might be referred to a specialist in whatever discipline seems appropriate. If after those tests and consultations the conclusion is… “inconclusive” then you are left no better off both physically and mentally, often left with no direction and no help, thrown back on the heap of despair!
In my case, having been “damaged” by a therapeutic drug, I am immediately outside the realms of normal doctor investigations. I don’t have an illness as such, what I have is lots of symptoms of lots of illnesses. Being “Floxed” is a particularly bad reaction to end up with because of the level of damage caused and what gets damaged… our cells. The cells and in particular the Mitochondria, are crucially important in the health of our bodily ecosystem. As a result of this, the most common issues post Floxing are generally “autoimmune” in nature as our bodies natural state of affairs has been knocked out of the ball park. The resulting self harm the immune system does to us can be devastating leaving many with long term damage to multiple systems in our bodies. The scary thing is that the damage can come along later, much later and not necessarily at the time of taking the medication. In my case I had an immediate reaction which appeared to improve over many months only to explode almost 6 months afterwards having taken Ibuprofen, a commonly documented trigger amongst the Floxed community.
So for me it’s two years into this battle and I don’t feel significantly improved if I’m honest. There are many symptoms which I now only get fleetingly and some which have gone altogether it seems but others have held on tight and won’t let go. I’m not as bad as many out there which I am thankful of but I am sufficiently bad that my life is no longer normal and there are many restrictions on what I can do now.
On a good day I can wander slowly and maybe cover 5km or so but not without pain and not without consequences after. On a bad day I have acute burning and pains in my knees, ankles and feet and even wandering 50m is hard. It’s the nature of this condition, it’s not constant and not predictable.
The damage done is subtle and hard to detect in scans and x-rays, requiring surgery, arthroscopy and biopsies to actually check the internal condition of joints, tendons and muscle fibres. Each of those procedures in itself carries additional risks and I have first hand accounts of long term additional pain and suffering after having some of these. So that leaves us in a difficult place where there are often “indications” that there may be something going on but it’s all a bit fuzzy in nature.
In my case I have many indications but no hard diagnosis:-
- I had a back MRI that showed 3 slipped discs, another MRI show a thickening of the tendons in my foot that could indicate tendonitis yet pre-Cipro I had no symptoms or indicators for these issues.
- I have re-occurring joint pains, joint weakness, burning in joints that could indicate arthritis yet the blood tests don’t indicate that (although my consultant believes I have arthritic symptoms now). Again prior to Cipro I never experienced any joint pains or stiffness at all.
- I have had significant worsening of my eyesight although the eye health itself is fine, but this is another well documented Floxing issue.
- Nerve issues come and go with tingling, pin prick sensations, muscle spasms, teeth numbness, twitching, skin burning and weakness. Again my nerve conduction tests did show some nerve damage but it wasn’t felt to be overly significant and may well improve… once again something I have never had prior to Cipro.
- Insomnia comes and goes but in the beginning it was horrendous!
- The collagen depletion has left me with foot atrophy and loss of padding around ankle joints, knees, my backside and elbows. It hurts to sit on a hard surface or walk barefoot on concrete or lean on a table with my arms because it feels like I’m putting weight on bone with nothing in between.
- My most debilitating issues are musculoskeletal, in combination with the weakened tendons and ligaments I have lost large amounts of muscle. I can actually feel the difference in the structure of my arms, legs and back, the lumpy muscle has been replaced with soft flesh as if the muscle simply vanished. I struggle carrying a single bag of shopping now as I can feel the weight go right through my arms, down my back, down my legs and into my feet and it hurts. I used to carry 3 or 4 bags in each hand! My mobility is massively reduced, leaving my ability to do things around the house, do my hobbies, travel, go out, live life! massively restricted.
I am staying positive and I still intend to get some or all of my life back but I realise the timescales are longer than I had hoped for. It may be a year, two or more before I can look back on this and feel like I am well again but that’s what I intend to do somehow.
Remember, don’t take Ciprofloxacin unless you really have no other choice!
My Post Ciprofloxacin Life 