Ciprofloxacin Dangers

Just found this website by a chap who was left disabled by the side effects of ciprofloxacin. If you read his story he also got severe tinnitus as well, but that was the least of his concerns. Poor chap.

As an aside, it seems the ciprofloxacin ear drops are ototoxic especially if they penetrate the eardrum. It seems this drug is very very toxic.

http://www.ciproispoison.com/

 

This drug caused my tinnitus.

 

Wow, absolutely frightening...
I am very grateful to be aware of the dangers of certain antibiotics now and can keep myself and my family safe and make informed choices on medications.

 

Entire books have been written by people who've been "floxed" by this class of antibiotic. My tinnitus spike 6 months ago which is still with me was caused by Cipro. I think more needs to be done to develop antibiotics that are less toxic to humans.

 

Or enhance immunity so antibiotics aren't required in the first place.

 

It appears to me almost everyone who takes these drugs damages themselves to some degree. I think it's similar to the people on this forum who expose their ears to loud noises--sometimes for years with no apparent damage--until one day they wake up with tinnitus. The damage didn't happen overnight, but over a long period of time. -- I would urge anybody with tinnitus or injured ears to never, ever consider taking one of these drugs. There are almost always very suitable alternatives that are MUCH safer.

 

Interesting that one of the other vote options on the STAT website is for a study looking at the dangers of this antibiotic:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2689031

Adverse events in general are not well catalogued in medicine. Once you realise this it makes you very cynical and distrusting of any new medical treatment, which in itself can be dangerous.

 

Ciproflaxin worsened my tinnitus some years ago when an ENT prescribed it for an ear infection. I would never take it again as nobody was believing me that this drug was the cause , even my family thought it was due to psychological reason which made me very sad.

 

Scientific literature (PubMed does have quite a few studies about this available for perusal) reports the opposite.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11589975
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25363170
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24093464
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19041513
(there are more you can find directly on PubMed)

Be careful to not confuse systemic Cipro with Ciprodex topical drops.

 

Are these a specific class of antibiotics? Why is this brand or type so ototoxic?

 

My understanding is this is a class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones (I think there may be another similar name as well, or one with a slightly different spelling). My understanding is these drugs target DNA, whereas most other antibiotics target the cell wall. That they targetsDNA would likely go a long way toward explaining how they often do such widespread, systemic damage to the nerves (and brain), and why it can be so ototoxic. In many cases they eviscerate the connective tissue in the body (which as I understand, makes up about 30-40% of our body weight).

Thousands upon thousands of people have been horribly damaged by these kinds of antibiotics (unnecessarily so, as there are almost always safer, less dangerous options to choose from). It's why many of these drugs have already been taken off the market. But the ones that remain are just as harmful as the ones that have already been banned. My understanding is that it's a widely held view that many of the soldiers who experienced Gulf War Syndrome were likely "floxed", as the symptoms are almost identical.

I've been on an ME/CFS forum for many years, and a number of people developed this debilitating disease (very similar to Gulf War Syndrom) after being given a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. One possible reason for this is that the connective tissue becomes so damaged, that it can no longer hold the neck and head in place, and the weight of the head compresses the brainstem. -- But that's a whole other story.

Why some would point to scientific studies that refute the horrible experiences of literally tens of thousands of sufferers puzzles me, to say the least. What is often not taken into account is that symptoms of damage often don't appear until many years later. And repeated use creates cumulative damage over time.

 

This is why adverse drug reactions don’t get recorded and patients are told drugs are safe or won’t cause x or y symptom @Dr. Ancill

 

Yeah, stay away from Cipro. I had to take some for a deep infection after a cat bite. No other antibiotic could kill the anaerobic bacteria. It made my tinnitus worse while I was on it. It may have permanently increased it, if not it just spiked it really really bad. Like 6 months bad.

 

Many years ago I read an account of a man who got bitten by a poisonous spider, and his hand immediately swelled up to about twice its normal size. He went to the ER, where they wanted to do emergency amputation! Instead of going that route, he remembered a friend of his who did odd experiments with ozone therapy. So he called him and told him what was happening.

His friend had him come over right away, where he had him submerge his hand in water that was continuously being ozonated by his machine. Almost immediately, the pain and sweeling began to subside, and within hours was mostly back to normal. -- But of course we know not to believe or put ANY reliance on such anecdotal nonsense. After all, it has never been proven a treatment like this could be successful by "randomized double blind placebo control studies". (Is there an emoticon for snark?)

 

I had no idea. So if I am ever prescribed it what name should I be looking our for on the bottle? Cipro?

 

From THIS SITE:

"Prescribed more than 32 million times in the USA in 2015, fluoroquinolone antibiotics have caused devastating side effects for tens of thousands of patients, including: diarrhea and vomiting, tendon ruptures, joint, muscle and nerve conditions, retinal detachment, aortic aneurysm, central nervous system dysfunction (insomnia, restlessness, fatigue, seizures, convulsions and psychosis) and more.(2)

Some patients have developed Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a condition that affects the blood and blood vessels, resulting in the destruction of blood platelets, anemia and kidney failure. Search YouTube for “Stevens-Johnson Syndrome” and you’ll see patients sharing an agonizing skin condition that occurred after the use of fluoroquinolones. Basically, it causes the skin and mucous membranes to become necrotic and die. A very small group patients, most often healthy young females, have developed Fluoroquinolone Disability Syndrome where they become permanently disabled after using the medication for minor medical conditions."

Types of fluoroquinolones

• ciprofloxacin (Cipro)
• levofloxacin (Levaquin/Quixin)
• gatifloxacin (Tequin)
• moxifloxacin (Avelox)
• ofloxacin (Ocuflox/Floxin/Floxacin)
• norfloxacin (Noroxin)

 

This isn't really possible. I'm not saying ABs aren't overused, and fluroquinolones are especially dangerous and should be used with a lot more caution, but the advent of antibiotics was fundamentally necessary for basically all modern medicine / operations, as well as allowing us to live in tightly packed urban zones.

There's a lot of bugs out there which we lack any immunity to and no amount of healthy living will change that.