I'm hoping this doesn't stray further off topic, but ....
I think it is on the topic b/c the original poster was asking about Avelox (FQ antibiotic).
What's your gut tell you about the long-term impact of that severe adverse drug reaction on you ??
It destroyed my health and life as I knew it was over. I was in excellent health (other than the throat infection) prior to taking Levaquin. At that time, I was at the gym 5x/week (three of those working with a personal trainer) and was working full-time in my career and doing volunteer work. The reaction occurred on the final day of taking Levaquin (500 mg pills, 1x/day for seven days). It was not an allergic reaction vs. a neurotoxic reaction. Had I been allergic to the first pill, it would have actually been a blessing, because I would not have ended up taking all seven pills. After Levaquin, it took me six months of physical therapy just to be able to write with a pen again. It started my descent into medical hell.
In December 2013, I suffered a near fatal drug reaction (DRESS Syndrome). Since that time, my health has slowly gone downhill. I'm now in presumptive heart failure along with the ME/CFS.
Which medication was it from (if you are comfortable saying)? I Googled "DRESS Syndrome" after reading your post and it is not what happened to me b/c it sounds like an allergic skin reaction (unless I am totally misunderstanding). My reaction was not allergic and did not involve my skin. Five years after the Levaquin reaction, I developed MCAS and had near death allergic reactions in 2015 but they were totally different than what happened with the Levaquin. I have no idea if the MCAS was in any way related to it.
Why do you think you are in presumptive heart failure now? Did this show up on an Echo or other test? I am so sorry to hear this and am hoping it will turn out not to be the case.
My scant research tells me that these serious ADRs (Adverse Drug Reactions) can
really do serious harm -- some immediate, some much longer term. It's often triggered by a '
cytokine storm' set off
by the drug reaction.
My reaction was considered an "ADR" and I filed an FDA Med Watch report not that anyone at the FDA ever contacted me or gave a shit if I had died. Levaquin is given out like candy and is one of the biggest money makers on the market to this day. I had both immediate and long-term damage from it like you said.
I saw the autoantibodies you were found to have. Much of this ... and late-onset autoimmune issues ... are known to be sequelae to severe ADRs.
I had no idea that auto-antibodies were known sequelae to severe ADR's! I assumed in my case that the autoantibodies were post-viral. I was very unlucky to have several triggers and hits to my immune system in a short time span starting with the Levaquin reaction in 2010, followed by severe mono from EBV in 2012 (post surgery), followed by a second viral infection in Jan 2013 at the exact same time that we moved into a rental with toxic mold. So at this point, it is literally impossible to figure out what caused what? Even if I could assign percentages to what is from Levaquin, what is from EBV & viral infections, what is from toxic mold exposure, etc, I am not even sure it would matter at this point. All I know is that I have all of these auto-antibodies and I want them gone.
My gut tells me that none of this is coincidence in my case (and I'm trying to get the IVIG that you got (huge congratulations to you, by the way).
I don't think it is coincidence either and I hope you will be able to get the IVIG. Which autoantibodies do you have? Does your doctor support you getting IVIG? Once I realized that high dose IVIG was my best chance, and that if I was a responder, that Rituximab was the next step, I was hell-bent on making this happen. I had reached the point of knowing it could kill me, but it could also bring remission, and nothing was going to stop me or get in my way.
Did your health take a serious and unrecoverable turn for the worse after your ADR ??
Yes, 100% and I was not sick prior to taking Levaquin. But I recovered after 1.5 yrs only to get severe mono/EBV at age 41. And then the second virus/mold exposure sealed my fate and once I developed severe POTS, it just kept getting worse and worse. But I am still alive so there is hope.
So my message is that unless you are dying of sepsis, or there is literally no alternative to an FQ antibiotic, do not take one. It is not worth it.
We all know KDM did promise a lot during his career.
