Was Lady Gaga Floxed?

I suspect that Lady Gaga was floxed.

Before I continue with my explanation as to why I think this, let me say that this is pure conjecture. If, by chance, Lady Gaga reads this post and she wants me to take it down, either because it is false, or because it is true but none of my business and who the f am I to out her illness(?), she should please just let me know (and please note that a call from her as opposed to a note from a lawyer would be appreciated, but I will pay attention to either).

So, back in February, 2013 there were news reports that Lady Gaga (her real name is Stefani Germanotta, but I’ll keep referring to her by her stage name ’cause that’s what everyone knows her by) was sick and that she had undergone a whole bunch of tests to see if she had an autoimmune disease. Then there were reports that she couldn’t walk.  Shortly thereafter she canceled a concert because she tore her labrum – cartilage in her hip.  Then her entire concert tour was canceled. Then she disappeared for a while. If you take out the rockstar parts, her story is awfully similar to mine. My body started to go hay-wire in a way that seemed like an autoimmune disease, I got tested for the gamut of them and all the tests came back negative. Shortly thereafter I stopped being able to walk. I was lucky that I didn’t rupture any tendons and that I didn’t have to have surgery, but the fact that she did tear her labrum and had to have surgery is consistent with floxing. When I saw a video of her recently, she was standing and looked good, but she looked…. floxed. She looked like the energy had been sucked out of her. She wasn’t exuding confidence and energy, she looked like a Floxie.

It makes me really sad to think that Lady Gaga is a Floxie. I don’t want this to happen to anybody, but I’m a fan of hers. I have to be careful how I say this because I don’t want to stick my foot in my mouth, but it really bothers me when high accomplishing people, people who have found their greatness and are living it, get knocked down by fluoroquinolones. No one deserves to be floxed and no one is any better or worse than anyone else, but some people are living larger than other people. Some people are making a difference in the world, and for their trajectory to be stopped because of a stupid antibiotic is tragic. If I dare say, it’s more of a loss for the world for Lady Gaga to be floxed than it is for, say, me, to be floxed. I was, and still am, living a good life. But I wasn’t, and still am not, making art, effecting the culture of the country (even the world), fighting for civil rights or just generally living large. Lady Gaga was, and hopefully still is, or at least will be again, doing all those things.

If, as I believe, Lady Gaga is/was floxed, her tour was taken away from the world by either Bayer or Johnson & Johnson. Not only does that mean that a $50 million tour was canceled for LiveNation (aka Ticketmaster – the ones who were putting on the concert who lost a whole bucketload of moolah) and Lady Gaga, but all of the jobs that were to be supported by that tour were lost, and, more importantly in my opinion, the joy that her art would have given to all of her fans was lost. Money, art, culture, influence, joy, spectacle, energy – all of it was stolen by Bayer (or J&J).

I hope that I’m wrong. I hope that Lady Gaga is not floxed. I hope that she really did just injure herself with over-exertion originally then recovering from the surgery has kept her down for a while. I really hope that the official story is the truth and that I’m just crazy and biased because of what happened to me and now I think that everyone is floxed. I hope that this is all in my head.

I can understand several reasons why Lady Gaga would not want to come forward with being a Floxie, if, indeed, I am correct and she is a Floxie. First, this is unheard of. Who the hell gets messed up by an antibiotic? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t gone through it and I suspect that Lady Gaga suspects that no one will believe her if she comes forward. People will likely say that she’s lying, or that she was on other drugs, or that this was somehow her fault. They’d be wrong if they said those things, but I can understand her wanting to avoid the false criticism. Second, as I wrote about in my blog essay entitled “Shame” (https://floxiehope.com/2013/07/03/shame/ ), there is a lot of shame associated with floxing. Lady Gaga took an antibiotic, and now she can’t tour, she can’t dance, she can’t be a rockstar. And if you think that you’re loved only because you’re capable of those things, it’s natural to hide your illness, to not tell anyone that you’re not capable any more. Third, she probably feels the same powerlessness, doom and fear that most of us do when we are floxed.

Just in case Lady Gaga reads this, let me say – it gets better. It does. You will recover. Most people do. I did. You are young. You are strong. You are a ROCKSTAR. You can do this. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes healing. It takes compassion for yourself and your situation. It takes love. And even if you can’t wear your heel-less heels any more, you’re still loved, by millions. And you’re still a rockstar. And you’ll still be loved even if you are a different kind of rockstar than you were. Your energy will return. Your light will return. It will. Have faith. Be strong. Have hope.

Lady Gaga, while I’m sure that you just want to get well and leave this whole mess behind you, let me plug fighting the pharmaceutical companies for a second. The fight against the pharmaceutical giants who care only about their bottom line and who treat people like they are expendable, like collateral damage, like they don’t matter, has just begun. It would be wonderful to have someone as powerful and influential as you standing up and saying that this is not okay. It is not okay to maim and hurt people. It is not okay to treat people as if their health doesn’t matter, like their lives don’t matter, like they don’t matter. There is nothing okay about that. It would be wonderful to have your help in that fight. It’s daunting though, I know. And it’s not sexy. But your help would certainly be appreciated. In case this can push you over the edge toward advocacy – they give this poison to children, to babies, for ear and eye infections. If it almost wrecked you, as it almost wrecked me, imagine what it would do to a child who doesn’t have coping skills yet, who doesn’t have a mind yet to lose.

Lady Gaga, I am inspired by your words, “I’m on the right track baby, I was born to be brave.” I hope that you feel those words to be true. They are. Regardless of whether or not you fight the pharmaceutical giants, I hope that you find healing and hope and that your life gets back to the greatness that it was before you got sick. You’re amazing. Present tense. You can do this.

Always a fan,

Lisa Bloomquist

P.S. – Here’s a little video of me and a friend dancing to Just Dance, in 2009 (pre-flox – but I can still dance like I do in this video – poorly, but with a lot of heart) – https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1149570256573&l=2493007612854014142

The following may go a bit over the line considering that this is all conjecture.  I may be reading way too far into my own theories that are based on my own biases.  Oh well.  It’s my blog, I can be crazy and off-base if I want to.  (Again, I will take this all down if asked to by Lady Gaga.)

I want Lady Gaga to sue the hell out of Bayer and/or J&J.  Additionally, I want all of the organizations associated with her to sue the hell out of Bayer and/or J&J.  So many people, and so many corporations, have LOST SO MUCH MONEY because she has been out of commission for the last five months.  She was supposed to tour this summer.  She didn’t and if that’s either Bayer or J&J’s fault, they should PAY.  They should pay so much that their stock plummets.

Despite what the sinister Supreme Court may rule, corporations are not people and thus they do not have a soul.  Their soullessness is demonstrated through their lack of compassion toward their victims, their structure of fighting, overpowering and bullying their victims as opposed to compensating them, changing their actions based on caring for the actual souls that they effect, and working toward meaningful human goals like caring, compassion, empathy, connectedness, etc.  The ONLY thing that they, the corporations, not the individuals within the corporations, care about is their bottom line.  Thus, the ONLY way to hurt them is to hurt their bottom line.

Those corporations that have had their bottom lines effected by the loss of Lady Gaga as a performing artist – her record label, her management company, Live Nation / Tickemaster, etc.  – everyone – should sue the hell out of Bayer (or Johnson & Johnson) for what they did to your bottom line.  They hurt your corporation.  Seek justice for your corporation and you will gain a small piece of justice for the individuals, the people, the actual souls, who have been hurt by these companies.  It is not your goal to seek justice for us, or even for Lady Gaga.  Your goal is to restore your bottom line and to recoup losses.  But a side-effect of hurting the bastards that hurt us is that you will be achieving a small amount of justice for all of us who have been hurt by them.  Your billion dollar lawsuit will be greatly appreciated.

I sent this letter to Live Nation / Ticketmaster back in February.  I just got the lawyer’s name off of the internet.  I have no idea if I sent it to the right place or not.  I didn’t get a reply.

February 20, 2013

Dear Mr. Rowles,

I am writing to encourage you to look into the causes of Lady Gaga / Ms. Germanotta’s illnesses and, if they can be linked to fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox, etc.  Please note that adverse reactions to fluoroquinolone antibiotics can occur up to a year after the drugs are taken, and stopped), to sue the manufacturer of the drugs – Bayer in the case of Cipro and Avelox and Johnson & Johnson in the case of Levaquin – for the losses incurred by LiveNation/Ticketmaster resulting from the cancellation of the Born This Way tour. 

Ms. Germanotta’s reported injuries are consistent with those of many other victims of fluoroquinolone antibiotics.  Torn ligaments and tendons, an inability to walk, symptoms that seem like an autoimmune disease (it was recently reported that Ms. Gremanotta was tested for Lupus and other autoimmune diseases).  Additional symptoms of fluoroquinolone toxicity include:

Peripheral Nervous System: Tingling, numbness, prickling, burning pain, pins/needles sensation,

electrical or shooting pain, skin crawling, sensation, hyperesthesia, hypoesthesia, allodynia

(sensitivity to touch), numbness, weakness, twitching, tremors, spasms.

Central Nervous System: Dizziness, malaise, weakness, impaired coordination, nightmares,

insomnia, headaches, agitation, anxiety, panic attacks, disorientation, impaired concentration or

memory, confusion, depersonalization, hallucinations, psychoses.

Musculoskeletal: Muscle pain, weakness, soreness; joint swelling, pain; tendon pain, ruptures.

Special Senses: Diminished or altered visual, olfactory, auditory functioning, tinnitus (ringing in the ears).

Cardiovascular: Tachycardia, shortness of breath, hypertension, palpitations, chest pain.

Skin: Rash, swelling, hair loss, sweating, intolerance to heat and\or cold.

Gastrointestinal: Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain.

Further information about how fluoroquinolone antibiotics can ravage a person’s body can be found on www.ciproispoison.com and through doing a search for “The Fluoroquinolone Wall of Pain” on Facebook.  Additionally, the New York Times ran a recent article about the danger of fluoroquinolones – http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/popular-antibiotics-may-carry-serious-side-effects/ (the comments after the article shed some light on the pain that many experience after being poisoned by fluoroquinolones). 

Please note that though some side effects are listed on the package inserts of fluoroquinolone antibiotics, many warnings are missing.  The facts that damage caused by fluoroquinolone antibiotics can be permanently debilitating, that the effects are not reversible through any actions taken by doctors and that steroids and NSAIDs are contraindicated with fluoroquinolone antibiotics are not mentioned anywhere on the list of side effects. 

Thousands of people have been hurt by fluoroquinolone antibiotics.  Most do not have the power or resources to sue Bayer or Johnson & Johnson.  LiveNation / Ticketmaster does have the resources to seek justice and to recoup the damages caused by Ms. Germanotta’s poisoning.  Please, if fluoroquinolone antibiotics are responsible for the loss of the tour (and possibly the ending of Ms. Germanotta’s career), hold the manufacturers of these dangerous drugs responsible and recoup the money lost from the cancellation of the tour. 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Regards,

Lisa Bloomquist