*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. 

Hi,my name is Francesco,i am a 37y/o italian chef.                                                                                                                                                                                   

In the last few months of 2014 after having some relapsing cystitis already treated with 2 weeks of cyprofloxacin,my urologist diagnosed me with a severe form of prostatitis which he decided to “cure” with massive cycles of levofloxacin+amoxicillin based antibiotics (augmentin)+cortisonics. Each cycle lasting about 2 weeks for a total of more than 60 days of this treatment in 3 o 4 months,even more if we consider precedent cypro treatments for cystitis.First time i took levofloxacin i felt my mouth burning so much that i could take that pill only sorrounded by water(told that to my doctor,he replied i should take it anyway). Ironically my prostatitis stayed the same,sometimes got even worse. Mid-treatment i began to feel some minor pain on the upper side of my feet,something like having a small pebble stone in the shoe,i told that to my doctor cause i knew there could be side effects taking fluorochinolones,he basically told me not to worry and so i went on taking the pills as the pain was really low,i still could go running with no problems and work in the kitchen,which is really hard on muscles and tendons. About 1 month after last cycle things began to get worse:after a short walk i started to feel intense pain in my right ankle and feet,it rapidly  got red,swollen and  i could barely drive with it. I was on vacation,so i drove back to my home city (100km from there) and things got even worse:i could barely move my right foot,i felt like my tendon got so weak i almost had no control on it,a feeling similar to when u’re about to lose a thoot. In about one week i had severe tendonitis almost everywhere ,especially in ankles and shoulders,plus my back was continuosly hurting and got rigid like i got 40 years older in one week. I also felt weak and had vision problems:when i tried to read something on a screen,black letters appeared green on their borders. I couldn’t lift anything,i couldn’t walk for the pain,even opening my home’s door was painful,sometimes even laying on bed. Useless to say i had to stop driving,working,walking,people had to go get me food etc.

Asking doctors for help led to almost nothing,they minimized saying it would get better soon or even denied it could depend on quinolones,so basically i was bed ridden,no medical help and my symptoms got worse every day. So i started  looking for information on the net,focusing on learning as much as i could from people suffering from the same thing and getting better somehow. I’ve read every healing story here on floxiehope trying to cross the informations and learn from the most frequent and common healing strategies.

One of the most important thing i learned for sure is getting in a mindset of absolute acceptance:this is not a flu,it makes no sense observing the situation everyday (also cause it usually has a wavy behaviour) and as someone said,things get worse before they get better. So i accepted the time i had to stay all day in bed,listened to my body carefully (that also came from my yoga training) and proceded step by step. I began to move,it took me 20 minutes to get to the grocery shop 20 meters away from home and 2 days to recover from that. But i kept patiently doing that,confident that no matter what,if it was possible to heal i would have done it. It was like being in the middle of the sea and confidently holding on,sure that one day i would see some land appear. This lasted 2 months,some days i got back to square one,what i tried to do was concentrating on  long period average changes,never caring  for 3-4 real bad days,just accepting them. In this period i basically took magnesium,D-vitamin (my level of this was REALLY low and it helped) and tried to have a healty alimentation, eating  vegetables,fish,wholemeal rice and staying away as much as i could from gluten and coffee(ironically THIS worked for my prostatitis way better then quinolones),as i felt those were the two things more related to relapses (i also got regular tratments from a very very skilled osteopath). Some months after i got to the point were i could slowly walk again,but i still could not drive or lift medium weights. I started walking in the park,that got me really excited after so much time almost bed ridden,so i got there everyday,exaggerating a bit and got hurt on my knee into 15 days stop.

So we get to current days,1 year has passed,i can walk,drive,cook and in the last two weeks i started running again,finally feeling the possibility and the deep desire to speed up things a bit,strenghtening muscles to make tendons do less effort. I feel like i grew so much psychologically having to face this year (this is not the only bad thing happened in the same period) and i’ll bring this attitude with me for the rest of my life.

My advice:never care for results,concentrate on what you can actually control,like calibrating your efforts the best you can,find your personal way to do it. There will be times when you will consider useless all you did till that moment,that’s where not caring at all for results will pay: you will simply continue doing your thing cause that’s all really matters. What i personally got doing this is that tomorrow morning i’ll go running for the 8th time in 15 days,driving my car, i never felt so happy ,alive,mentally strong,and i can hardly describe the feeling when my legs asked me to run again and i decided  to trust them. Keep believing.Even when shit lasts forever,it never makes sense to give up. Best wishes to you all.

** 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.