*The following is an individual’s story of surviving fluoroquinolone toxicity. It is not medical advice. Please see the disclaimer at the bottom of the story. Thank you, and please be cautious with all treatments.
19 years ago I was diagnosed with prostatitis. I can’t remember if the first treatment was Cipro (a popular antibiotic) or something else. But as the years went on the flare-ups continued and I was prescribed Cipro numerous times.
95% of prostatitis is non-bacterial but the doctors always said, “well, we will treat it as if it is.”
About 5 years ago I was experiencing nausea, chest tightness, panic attacks, extreme brain fog, insomnia, an itchy face that was there and gone again in an instant, and tingling/ crawling scalp.(these are all side effects of Cipro but I did not know that then and neither did my doctors). Most of these symptoms came on at different times. I spent months in the doctor’s office. Once a week for months at a time. Never any answers. I was sick with worry. I was sure I must have some form of cancer. How do you feel that bad for that long and no tests ever show anything wrong? (Cipro damages DNA and mitochrondria and the damage it does will not show up in blood tests etc.)
After some time the doctors just told me it was stress and prescribed me Ativan. I’m sure they thought I was either nuts or a hypochondriac or both. I never took one Ativan pill.
Looking back at doctors records, I was given three 30 day doses of 500 mg of Cipro, twice daily, in a 11/2 year period(2010 to 2012). Shortly after this I became ‘floxed’ but I didn’t even know what that was then (google the word ‘floxed’ if you’re unsure of its meaning).
Fast forward to 2016. I was prescribed Cipro or ciprofloxacin in early May/2016 in Houston clinic for a prostatitis flare-up. With-in a day, I was experiencing muscle pain in my legs. At night, peculiar pains stole through my legs, popping in and out in different places. I tried to focus on their origin, but they evaporated just when my attention found them. My eyes started to burn and my ears started ringing. Then brain fog set in, I drove in front of a train while the stop arms were coming down, backed into a power pole after unloading grass clippings, and then backed over a no trespassing sign when I went to work on my 5th wheel. At work that afternoon I locked out my machine center wrong twice in one shift. A fellow employee saved me from getting in with the wrong locks on. He asked me, ”what is wrong, you never mess that up.” I told him I was on powerful antibiotics and was not feeling like myself. That evening the eye floaters set in, and itchy tingly scalp.
Then it clicked. After 6 pills in 2016, it finally clicked. All those years of suffering were caused by Cipro. I have had all these symptoms before. By 2016, most of the symptoms I described earlier were gone or at least much improved. Time had healed most of the symptoms, other than the fatigue and occasional brain fog. Decided to google cipro and started reading. I have been poisoning myself for years! But its like a great weight has been lifted knowing what the cause is. I know now that I can never take Cipro or any flourquinalone type antibiotic ever again.
My Recovery:
I started my recovery by doing a lot of reading. I read a lot of the recovery stories on floxie hope website.
I started taking a lot of supplements, too many I think. I was on magnesium citrate (not the best form), magnesium oil, magnesium flakes for the bath, colostrum, Mito-Q, Vit.C, and probably a bunch of others that I am forgetting. Some of these were good and some were not and others needed the support of other minerals to do their job properly.
I am now doing the MAG protocol. There is a facebook group that describes the protocol and how to get started. It’s a bit confusing at first but spend some time and read the files. This is what I’m doing now and I am feeling so much better. I am almost free of all the Cipro induced damage other than tinnitus, and I still suffer from exhaustion but far less than before.
My Mag protocol: I work shifts, days that start at 6 am and afternoons that start at 4 so it changes every two weeks but here it is. First thing I have a yogurt with 1/4 tsp of bee pollen. Then breakfast. Then 2 liver caps, a couple prunes, and some mag water. At work I sip from a water bottle with Andersons Sea MD mineral drops, eat a couple more prunes, and have my first adrenal cocktail. I have lunch at some point. After work I make a shake with wholefood vit C powder, bee pollen, some blueberries, & Thorne Medi-clear. I then have supper and in the evening I take a tsp of CLO, another 1/2 cup of mag water, and 2 more liver caps. I try to have another adrenal cocktail as well. Just before bed a glass of water with 2 tsp of Bobs Mill rice bran. I also have a few Epsom salt baths a week and spray mag oil on sore joints.
To heal from fluoroquinolone poisoning we need to get magnesium into our mitochondria. Magnesium needs cofactors to do its job. Early on I was only taking the MAG, no co-factors. We need to get as many of the vitamin and minerals from natural sources rather than pill bottles which have fillers and things that are hard on your liver.
Vitamin B6 helps get Mg INSIDE the cell
Boron helps keep Mg INSIDE the cell
Bicarbonate helps get Mg INSIDE the Mitochondria (learn how to make and drink Mg water).
I highly recommend that you join the MAG group and start the full MAG protocol. I still take the Mito-Q. Its expensive but I honestly think it helped me. I am feeling so much better but I am still troubled by occasional prostatitis flare-ups. I take pumpkin seed oil, best prostate, pine pollen, and D-mannose to prevent them. If anyone has suggestions on preventing and treating flare-ups please let me know. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the MAG protocol and my battle with Cipro toxicity. Best wishes to you all.
Doug
** The story above is truthful, accurate and told to the best of the ability of the writer. It is not intended as medical advice. No person who submits his or her story, nor the people associated with Floxie Hope, diagnoses or treats any illness. The story above should not be substituted for professionally provided medical advice. Please consult your doctor before trying anything that has been mentioned in this story, or in any other story on this site. Please also note that people have varying responses to the treatments mentioned in each story. What helps one person may not help, and may even hurt, another person. It is important that you understand that supplements, IVs, essential oils, and all other treatments, affect people differently depending on the millions of variables that make each of us unique. Please use appropriate caution and prudence, and get professional medical advice.
Thanks for sharing your information. Just curious what a liver cap is?
Hi Doug – Great info. I was given Cipro for prostatitis 19 months ago. I was 5 days into a 10 day prescription when the bomb went off and I quit taking it. It’s been a slow recovery but I’m 90% better. I am also on the MAG protocol and it really helps. It should be the fundamental protocol for all floxies I think. I am having a prostititis flare up right now. Doc wants me to take 1 month of doxycycline but I am terrified of it triggering a flox relapse. I am trying natural alternatives. I’ll let you know if anything works. What really helps is not sitting on that area, and staying away from spicy foods and bad foods, and exercise.
Hi Doug, i was floxed by perhaps cipro (diarrhea)no effect during that time, but 3 months later diagnosed with prostatitis (which probably isn’t prostatitis because another doctor pointed varicocele, will check next week)
I don’t want to talk much about my symptoms of fq toxicity as i am only mild compare to others, tinnitus, twitching, muscle pain and fatigue, back pain, etc
not as severe as others
but here i want to point out something, i personally never tried this, but maybe this is worth mentioning to you
if your prostatisis is not caused by bacteria, maybe it was caused by inflammatory agent which is GLUTEN! i have read several prostatitis patient that have tried literally anything they could try but ended up with no improvement, that was until they stopped eating gluten, and 90% symptoms were gone
i personally never tried this as i don’t know what exactly my disease (testicle to abdominal pain after only short motorcycle riding)
but i think it is worth mentioning to you,
and if you think you are not ready to become gluten free, you could google broccoli treatment, and there is an explanation from prostatis.org about how to do broccoli treatment
hope this helps,
Hendri
Thanks Doug.
Doug
I know you will have been told that most prostatitis is not bacterial, but that is not true for a large percentage of those with prostatitis. Cipro may be toxic poison, but there is a reason it is prescribed for this. There are several researchers out there who believe that prostatitis and interstitial cystitis are caused by an embedded chronic bacterial infection in the prostate/bladder. It’s also why you find d-mannose helps. In your shoes I would look into Hipprex or consider microbial antibiotics.
I am so pleased you figured it out and have healed to a much better place. My dad had prostatitis and was given cipro on and off for a couple of decades. He never figured out where his very strange and very debilitating symptoms came from and I realize, after I became floxed, how very strong he was in just trying to normal. Eventually his body gave out – died because of cipro side effects. The death certificate said heart failure but this was just one of the symptoms. I didn’t realize the connection until too late and took just 6 days of cipro and had quite a reaction. There is definitely a strong genetic component. I too was helped very much by magnesium and I’m very curious to see more about the MAG protocol.
Great story and I’m glad to hear you are doing better! I haven’t been on the full MAG protocol yet (I take B6, but not Boron or Bicarbonate portions). I do drink the adrenal cocktail daily and as a matter of fact, my alarm to remind me just went off.
I was given Levofloxacin in March of this year, for a sinus infection. I wish I knew at that time to say “no thanks”, but wasn’t aware of how harsh it is… I mean, I have always hated taking antibiotics unless absolutely necessary, but Levo for a sinus infection? Seriously? Some doctors are idiots. Ever since, I have had strange symptoms. Some of them are certainly from being “floxed”, but what exacerbates it is the Lyme/Bartonella I was already trying to keep at bay. Adding in the Levo just suppressed my immune system more and allowed Lyme/Bart and other pathogens to set in, introducing new symptoms. I think in most cases, these harsh FQs do that and we are not aware of exactly why the symptoms start. I think a huge part is they lower your immune system, wrecking your gut microbiome and allowing pathogens to the tip the scales in their favor, causing many of our symptoms.
For me, Lyme/Bart manifested in anxiety-like symptoms 2 years ago, but I was getting them under control, however since being “floxed” in March, I have had to battle even more and work harder to tip the scales in favor of my immune system so it can keep the pathogens at bay and start the process of healing, which will eventually eliminate the symptoms.
Here’s what symptoms Lyme/Bart brought to me in the past 2 years – heart palpitations, heart flutters that take breath away for a second or two, panic attacks, anxiety, insomnia and night sweats when anxiety was at its highest (all of which was getting under control and thankfully are still mostly under control) and here’s what has happened since being “floxed” 8 months ago – rashes, dizziness, fatigue (Epstein-Barr Virus got reactivated in me), Candida, parasites, SIBO (which sucks as I bloat uncomfortably after most meals even while watching my diet). Diet, herbs, vitamins, supplements and a Paleo-inspired diet have helped, but it has been a lot of ups and downs. This will take time, but I can do it and Doug here is an example that once you start giving your body what it needs consistently, it can heal itself.
Good luck to everyone and to your continued healing Doug!
I’ve taken Cipro a number of times in the last 25 years, and while I’m pretty sure I had some issues, I never made the connection. In fact, around 2001 I had pain in my Achilles tendons and odd muscle burning in my thighs, and I knew about the tendon issues associated with Cipro, but hadn’t taken it in a while so I just wrote it off to taking up riding a bicycle. It did go away in about a year, and it was never intense. Anyway, I still still thought these side effects were so rare that I didn’t need to worry about them. Apparently that isn’t the case. About 6 months ago I took Cipro again for a sinus/ear infection, and after the 6 day and things not improving, I went to an ENT. He said I had a viral ear infection and he told me to stop the Cipro, and place me on high doses of prednisone and an anti-viral drug. I didn’t have major side effects to that point, but as soon as I too the prednisone all hell broke loose. I became severely depressed, had extreme anxiety, tight chest, heart palpitations, jerks and twitches, muscle pain, tinnitus, etc. Surprisingly I never really had tendon pain, but I do now … but it’s mild. Anyway, I got on Xanax because I couldn’t function, and that was hard to get off of. I did taper off of that 2 months ago, and I guess if I had to quantify my recovery, I’d say I was at 80% after 6 months. I got on the Mg because of the muscle cramps, so I was lucky to have started early on that. I didn’t really know I had been “floxed” … I thought it was just my reaction to prednisone. Riding my bike, massages and Mg were the things that helped the most. I thought I was on my way to full recovery, but about a month ago, as noted above, I started having joint and tendon pain, but I’d describe it as mild. I felt it after I started lifting weights ago … so no more of that for a while. I also started getting some tingling in my hands and legs, but that seems to occur mostly when I take B complex. So, I don’t take much of that. I wonder if anyone else has this problem with the B vitamins. Surprisingly my vision (prescription) has been effected, and my eye doctor told me I was starting to get cataracts. It isn’t too bad, and hopefully won’t get worse anytime soon. Finally, if I push myself to hard, like I did over the Thanksgiving holidays, and don’t eat well, I get really fatigued. After reading about people having trouble with their Thyroid, I started taking iodine yesterday, and actually feel much more alert today. Is it the Iodine or a good night’s sleep? I think the iodine. Has anyone else taken iodine and what was it’s effect? Thanks!
So happy for you Doug. It is always reassuring to hear recovery stories. What type of MitoX did you take? I went and looked on the website and there are so many different ones. Thanks
Doug or Brian,
I’m interested in trying the Mag Protocol and the Adrenal Cocktail. I clicked on your link but cannot find either. Is there any way one of you can post the directions and ingredients??
I would really appreciate it because even though I’m able to go on facebook, I don’t know what I’m doing, how to navigate or do anything. Thank you
For prostatitis sufferers it’s always worth considering chronic pelvic pain syndrome, a lot of prostatitis sufferers have partially or completely recovered using cpps treatments. I recommend reading ‘A Headache In The Pelvis’, ‘Healing Pelvic Pain’ by Amy Stein and joining the forum at chronicprostatitis.com
I don’t know if this may help but it has helps me, being a woman with UTI problems. I discovered that taking Manukia 24+ honey (2TBS) and Briggs Apple Cider Vinegar (2 TBS), splash of lemon in hot water each morning keeps the UT bugs away. (I cannot take the sweetness of 2 TBS of honey so I cut it down to 1TBS of both honey and vinegar) It just may work for prostatitis. I got FED up with using antibiotics when I was Floxed and googled antibiotic resistant UT infections and this solution came up. It cleared up the UTI AFTER the antibiotics did not! Give it a try. It is all natural and worked for me. Thank you for giving me hope that I can get over this horrible poison! I am going to ready up on the MAG protocol.
Magnesium threonate is the only form to get into the brain, for those with neuro side effects. Also, I would seriously look into FMT therapy since much of our immune system is wiped by fq’s. If that is out of the question, I’m currently taking VSL#3 (super high dose probiotic) in hopes of recolonizing my gut. Acupuncture and TCM has essentially been keeping me alive for the last 4 years. Anyway, thought I toss in my 2 cents. Good luck everyone.
Glad you are doing so well…especially after ALL the Cipro you had. I discovered I too had taken Cipro and Levaquin once before each, and I was “done in” by only 3 500 mg pills the last (and mean LAST!!!!) time. I am way better than where I was, but I was walking death (more like shuffling death). I have about 6 side effects remaining including tinnitus. It makes me crazy. It is not a ringing ,but more like a constant humming/buzzing/hissing that NEVER goes away. I have tried different things, like this Cyma machine where I get IVs (sound waves) but so far, nothing. Let me know if you ever find anything that works for this.
This isn’t a recovery story. It’s a recovery claim with treatment recommendations. Could you specify which symptoms are gone and what may linger? If full recovery, how long did it take? Was it sudden or gradual?
Dear Doug, Please consider sharing your story on CBS 60 Minutes. 60m@cbs.news.com
OUR STORIES NEED TO BE HEARD, Dan
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