Every Friday Michelle Polacinski, a Floxie as well as the Director and Producer of ‘Floxed,’ sends out a newsletter to those who have subscribed to the ‘Floxed’ newsletter. The Floxed Friday updates are always interesting and thoughtful, and Michelle has given me permission to share them here. 
 
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The following was written by Michelle: 

It’s hard to bounce back from Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Syndrome. In fact, many people never do. For those who do, you may ask, How do you feel? Are you back to normal? Are you at 100%?

I don’t know a single floxie comfortable with saying they are 100% better. I never have. I also don’t think it’s possible to be “back to normal” or to who you were previously when something like this happens to you.

It’s traumatic. It changes your perspectives on life, on the medical system, on what the heck an antibiotic is, on what you put in your body, and the significance of everyday things. How can you ever be back to who you were, especially when you come back from a horrifying disability?

And no, rarely anyone can say they are 100% better because flare ups happen. Some symptoms never go away. Even if you feel good for years, one day you wake up with the worst chest pain in your life and you wonder, “Is this an aortic aneurysm?”

EBV and Nerve Damage:

I felt this way more recently with the onset of Epstein-Barr virus, which affects approximately 90% of the population, commonly known as mononucleosis or “mono,” and going back to a lot of the same supplements I took every day for years when I was at my worst.

I’ve been dealing with numbness in my hands again and it’s horribly frustrating. This came up after taking cacao, a neurostimulant, and it made me wonder, Are my hands getting better or worse?

A thing we floxies say is that “healing comes in waves.” Really. You’ll feel a symptom and it may come and go over the matter of a few days or weeks or months before you start to feel it get better. Maybe my long-time nerve damage in my hands is going through a healing process again thanks to the cacao or maybe it’s getting worse. I’ll never know and there is probably no PhD, no expert on Planet Earth, who has the answer to that question, so I just have to wait it out like everything else.

So for now, my pee is bright yellow all thanks to high levels of b-vitamins in my system, you know, to stimulate nerve healing, mitochondria healing, and all that stuff. Amy Moser mentioned in our interview that it takes about a month for one inch of nerve to heal and that her nerves are forever damaged after 8 years, so she believes.

Who knows?

What’s next for the Floxed Team:

We have awesome news to share.
We’re finally all meeting in Los Angeles to shoot some of our bigger interviews (shh) with some big researchers and medical professionals in the field next month.

I’m very excited since LA was my home when I was floxed and I can’t wait to meet some of these people I’ve only spoken to online or over the phone. I’ll be meeting even more friends/floxie family while we’re out there and this is my first time back home since getting floxed.

We’re also applying to more grants and we feel very positive about them, especially one that particularly focuses on female filmmakers making films about disability awareness (heck yeah we are).

***Wish us luck and please cross all your fingers and toes that we can get some of these grants. It would push the process along much faster***

Have a great weekend!

Best,

Michelle Polacinski
Floxie, Director, and Producer of ‘Floxed’