Perhaps it’s because of the winter solstice dark and cold, or because 2019 was a particularly bad year for some people, or because being floxed SUCKS, or because of fear, or because nuance can be difficult to convey via the internet, or because of a million other potential reasons for ill moods, but it seems to me that people have been particularly impatient, rude, and even hateful on the floxie facebook pages and groups–including the floxie hope page and the fluoroquinolone wall of pain page, both of which I manage. I’m pretty decent at ignoring unpleasant things and avoiding confrontation, but the comments that are mean-spirited are starting to bother me. Perhaps in recognition of the holiday spirit or the change of the year (and decade), I would like to make a request – can y’all please be nice?

No one knows the perfect way to go through fluoroquinolone toxicity. No one knows the correct way to cure this. Everyone is experimenting and trying their best. Some people try things that they hope will be helpful or curative that have hurt others. The people who try these things are not stupid or trying to rub an adverse reaction in anyone else’s face. Sometimes knowledge of best practices shifts and what someone tried years ago is now known to hurt floxies. It stinks, but it happens. There’s no need to belittle people for what they tried years ago – or what they tried yesterday. People are doing their best to heal with the information they have. Feel free to give more information, but I would like to ask people to please be thoughtful when “correcting” others.

A common criticism on the floxie hope facebook page is that posts are old. Yup – some of them are. This site has been around for 6.5 years – since June, 2013. I put older posts up on the floxie hope facebook page because I figure that some people will still get value out of the posts. I sincerely hope that they are helpful, hopeful, or otherwise valuable to some of the people who see them. I also don’t think that 6 years is that long, or that a 6-year-old post is less valuable than a 6-hour-old post. However, if some of the information is out-dated or incorrect, I apologize. I did the best I could at the time I wrote each post, and I’m still doing my best now. I try to post accurate and backed-up information, but sometimes I’m wrong about an assertion. It happens. I’m a blogger. This site is my blog, not a peer-reviewed journal. I have always tried my best to be correct, but I don’t have the resources to verify any of my assertions about the causes or effects of fluoroquinolone, so please take everything I write with that grain of salt.

I also put up old posts because, frankly, I’ve gotten tired of doing fluoroquinolone research, putting together pieces of information from various sources, and formulating thoughtful and informative posts. I don’t have the emotional or intellectual energy to do that like I used to. I apologize. I wish I still had that energy and passion. But, to be honest, it has waned. I miss the passion that I once had, and I feel like the posts I have written in the last year-ish are not particularly inspired (or interesting). I would LOVE to have thought-provoking, interesting, inspired, passionate posts on this site, and I invite anyone who is interested in putting a post on floxiehope.com to send me what they’d like to post. This site has a decent-sized audience and it’s a good way to say what you want to say about fluoroquiolone toxicity to the community. Please let me know if you’re interested in writing for floxiehope.com (through either clicking THIS LINK or on the pic below).

One more thing that is a bit tangential – Facebook is cracking down on a lot of sites and groups, and I hope that the fluoroquinolone toxicity community on Facebook doesn’t get hurt by the crackdowns. I don’t think I’m breaking any FB rules, but even without thinking I’m breaking any rules, I’m still having some issues. This notice is currently on the fluoroquinolone wall of pain facebook admin page:

I clicked on the “learn more” link and, as far as I can tell, all rules have been followed. But maybe I did something inadvertently that was against facebook’s rules. Or, maybe they’re wrong. Either way, facebook has a massive amount of power to affect our reach and our ability to spread the word about fluoroquinolone toxicity, and if they shut down the pages and groups related to fluoroquinolone toxicity, well, that will be an awful shame. Facebook has facilitated the growth of this community (as I’m writing this, the Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Group on Facebook has 10,761 members). It has facilitated people sharing information about this illness, recovery, coping, etc. I am grateful to Facebook for all that it has offered. But what it gives, it can take away. I’m slightly worried that a wrong move can result in the disillusion of a major meeting-ground for floxies. I hope that we can continue to use facebook, and it would be a shame if we couldn’t and had to start over on a different platform. If you have a problem with something that is posted on the floxie hope facebook page or the fluoroquinolone wall of pain facebook page, please contact me rather than reporting it to facebook. Maybe then we can stay in their good graces.

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