A site to give hope for healing to those adversely affected by fluoroquinolone antibiotics – Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and Floxin
Here is a new post on Hormones Matter:
WARNING: FLUOROQUINOLONE ANTIBIOTICS MAY RUIN YOUR LIFE
Chandler Marrs, founder of Hormones Matter, wisely asked, “We fight for better labeling, but is that really the right battle? How about safer medications? How about a better understanding of who is at risk and what percentage of people might experience those reactions? How about accountability when reactions occur?”
Indeed.
Before I started studying adverse drug reactions / biochem / cellular biology, I thought that there were people who had a pretty good grasp of how everything within the human body works. I was wrong about that – I was ignorant. It took a lot of research for me to realize that the body is so incredibly (beautifully) complex, and that systems are so unpredictably intertwined, that no one really grasps how it all works. We aren’t even close. But pharmaceuticals throw a wrench in many biochemical pathways whether we are aware of them or not. Ignorance is not bliss. The complexity of life is mind-bogglingly amazing. How ’bout we stop messing with it in ways that hurt us?
A post about how complex and interconnected all of our biological systems are, and about how messing up any or all systems with pharmaceuticals is probably not the best idea, can be found here –
SIDE EFFECTS AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF POPULAR PHARMACEUTICALS
Many of the thoughts behind the post are based on THIS CHART.
There is nothing simple about biochemistry, but there is something that is beautiful and incredible about it. All of those systems work together, and amazingly, they work together perfectly most of the time. I find it to be mind-blowing and I’m a bit awe struck by what incredibly complex creatures we are.
Pharmaceuticals have the power to disrupt our biochemical systems. I wish that we were using a bit more prudence with powerful concoctions that can hurt us in multiple ways.
Thou shall not worship false idols.
I’ve been thinking about the commandment not to worship false idols a lot since getting floxed.
We, as a society, and probably as individuals too, look to pills to fix us. We look to pharmaceuticals to cure us when we are sick. We worship the pills as if they are magical, and good, and as if they will remove all problems from our lives. There is a systematic lack of questioning about whether or not drugs are actually good – whether the benefits outweigh the costs. We have faith – blind, baseless faith – that all drugs do more good than harm, that adverse effects are transient and rare, that there is enough knowledge about the workings of the human body to anticipate how a drug is going to affect cells and how those effects are going to change the health and well-being of the person who takes them, etc. (To their credit, scientists do try to make drugs safe and understand how they work – but there is a lack of willingness to admit that we know far too little about the workings of the human body to be messing with it like we are.)
We worship doctors as if they are Gods.
I wonder if there is something profoundly broken about this way of thinking. And I wonder if there are some deep lessons to be learned in thinking about where our worshipping of false idols is taking us.
What happened in our floxed bodies is chemical. I don’t think that any of us got sick because of God’s spite or vengeance, or because any of us worship the “wrong” God. (There is NOTHING about getting poisoned that is your fault. Nothing.) Likewise, what it will take to fix us is chemical, and I don’t think that faith is going to be able to repair our broken cells.
But I also think that it is destructive and wrong to worship pharmaceuticals and doctors. They can be helpful and they can be guides – but they are not Gods.
I used to believe that adverse reactions are rare, antibiotics are benign, when a drug does harm a doctor can fix it, the FDA is ensuring drug safety, diseases are well understood, the pharmaceutical industry is working hard to find cures to the ills that plague humanity, etc. I no longer believe any of those things. I have lost my faith. Getting hurt – then gaining a little knowledge about how drugs work – will do that to you.
I don’t claim to know who or how (or even if) we should worship.
But I don’t think that pharmaceuticals or doctors should be worshipped. They are powerful – there’s no denying that. Unchecked power has never led to good though. In politics, unchecked power leads to corruption and tyranny. In medicine, unchecked power leads to poisoning – which leads to chronic disease and suffering.
Drugs aren’t the only false idol that are worshipped to the point of destruction and pain. The oceans, rivers, land, animals and humans are being hurt in the pursuit of fossil fuels. Money – the ultimate false idol – the one that none of us (myself included) seems capable of getting out from under the enchantment of – is pursued to the point of inducing pain, destruction and suffering of the earth and all her inhabitants.
When we, collectively (seriously, no individual blame here), worship false idols, we get poisoned. Our earth and our bodies are being poisoned as we worship money and power and chemical concoctions that we don’t realize the consequences of. It is a shame – a crying shame. My heart and soul ache for us all.
Also known as, “Post Fluoroquinolone Sex and Libido.”
Here is the link – http://www.hormonesmatter.com/post-fluoroquinolone-sex-libido/
Loss of libido, and other sexual side-effects, are common for floxies. Just one more thing these nasty drugs take away. It’s not okay.
I’m working on a couple of posts/articles/essays right now about how all sorts of chronic diseases, from diabetes to alzheimer’s to autism, are caused by mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress. I’m pointing out that pharmaceuticals cause mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress. Of course, I’m focusing on my least-favorite pharmaceuticals, fluoroquinolones, and am trying to make a case that fluoroquinolones cause many chronic diseases.
That line of thinking is scary as hell for those of us who have had a bad reaction to a fluoroquinolone.
What does the connection between fluoroquinolone induced mitochondrial damage / oxidative stress and chronic diseases mean for us? What is our prognosis? Are we going to come down with diabetes or Alzheimer’s? Are our kids going to be autistic? Scary stuff – aaaarghhhh!!! New plan – run and hide on a tropical island far from the internet.
Just so you all know, I’m not sure what it all means. I am doing my best to put together the pieces of the puzzle. I’m doing my best to draw conclusions from reputable sources. I’m doing my best to understand what happened in my body when the Cipro bomb went off in me. In trying to understand what happened, I’m stumbling upon articles that point to the possibility that the problem is bigger than we think. It is possible that fluoroquinolones are causally related to fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome / M.E., all autoimmune diseases, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, autism, some kinds of cancer, and more. Are all cases of those chronic diseases caused by fluoroquinolones? Of course not – most of the diseases are older than fluoroquinolones. But it’s possible that they have increased hand in hand with fluoroquinolone use because of the damage that fluoroquinolones do to mitochondria, and the oxidative stress that they induce.
It’s also possible that other drugs are the primary culprits. And I suppose that it’s even possible that junk food that is full of free radical producting chemicals is the culprit behind all the oxidative stress that people who have chronic diseases experience. Or maybe the problem is GMO corn or childhood vaccines or pesticides or something else. There are pretty reputable sources that note that pharmaceuticals cause mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress though, so I’m betting that the culprits are Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Abbvie and all the other pharmaceutical giants that are very good at making customers and very bad at actually promoting health.
Anyhow, the theory that fluoroquinolones cause mitochondrial damage / oxidative stress and that mito damage / oxidative stress are behind all sorts of chronic diseases is the theory that I’m going with. Whether I’m right or wrong is yet to be seen. Even though my theory may scare the crap out of you, your support is still greatly appreciated. 🙂
If I’m wrong, the case against fluoroquinolones is still pretty damning. With fluoroquinolones, one can convert an acute problem, an infection, into a chronic syndrome that includes destruction of connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, cartilage, fascia, etc.) throughout the body, damage to the nervous systems (central, peripheral and autonomic), and more. Fluoroquinolone toxicity can develop slowly or quickly. It can last for months or years. Tragically, some people don’t recover. But most people do – with time.
How fluoroquinolones cause the damage that they do is hugely complex and difficult to understand. Part of the damage mechanism is mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress, hence the trip down chronic disease lane. Other aspects of how fluoroquinolones work – DNA adducts, RNA transcription errors, disruption of tubulin assembly, etc. are equally daunting and potentially harmful. Ugh. Bad news.
But people do recover from fluoroquinolone toxicity. I did. I’m fully recovered. So are the other people who have shared their stories on www.floxiehope.com. I wonder if the chronic disease prognosis for those who recover is any different from the prognosis for those who don’t, or for those who take fluoroquinolones but don’t have an adverse reaction. I don’t think that a study to answer that question has been done. It would be interesting to find out the answer.
Right now, we don’t know the answers though, so we have to make assumptions about our health and our future. If you’re going to make baseless assumptions about your personal health prognosis though, they may as well be hopeful ones. Try to believe that you will heal and that once you heal you will be as capable, resilient and durable as you were before a fluoroquinolone knocked you down. Or, better yet, believe that floxing gave you some sort of health super-powers. Here is a crazy thought – what if our floxing reaction was actually protective against damaged cells and the conversion of those cells into chronic diseases? What if our horrible reaction was because of mass apoptosis (programmed cell death), and in dying, those cells kept from reproducing and leading to a chronic disease at some later time? Now that is a far-fetched hypothesis, but I kind of like it. I just hope that my recovery doesn’t mean that my bad cells are sticking around now. :p
Back to fluoroquinolones being related to the chronic diseases – what if I’m right? What if fluoroquinolone caused mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress is behind all of the chronic diseases of modernity? Well, it’s a sad state of affairs. But people should know about it. They should hear about it. They have the right to know.
But you are going to be fine. Try to believe it.
The Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Solution + The Floxie Food Guide:
