Has anyone here experienced permanent damage from levaquin?

This side effect is more likely in older adults (who do have random aches and pains which makes it easier to brush off twinges of pain) and in people who use steroids (like prednisone but also even taking a steroid nasal spray for allergies like Nasonex may cause this problem). With ALL drugs side effects, the most important things to remember is that most of them are rare, especially the severe ones, and most people take the drug without problems BUT be aware of the side effects and if you start having them, CALL your prescribing physician or go to Urgent Care/ER. Trust me, your physician is available even at night and on the weekends or has someone as qualified covering for him. Call the office, even after hours and weekends, many will connect to an answering service directly or have a recording with the number of the answering service you can call, they will alert your physician or the covering physician and have them call you back (make sure that you do not have a block on your phone as most docs have an unlisted number so if you block unlisted numbers, take the block off so they can reach you-if they get a message that says "this party does not receive blocked calls and asks to unblock their number for the call to go through, they are not going to do it-they are going to hang up and figure that you must not have wanted to talk to them that bad if you didnt take the block off-they are not going to release their personal cell phone or home phone for obvious reasons) or sometimes the answering service will put you directly through to the physician. EVERY doctor is available for emergencies after hours and on weekends or has a covering doctor. It astounds me that people do not think to pick up the phone and call their doctors about questions or problems. You are NOT bothering your doctor (unless you make a habit of calling often for every little thing). That is part of his job to deal with problems after hours and on weekends and trust me, they are used to it. They may just tell you to go to the ER or they may tell you to make an appt depending on the severity. DONT wait until your next appt if you start having problems-call the office and tell them what is happening right away. Open communication between you and your doctor is VERY important and he cant do his job right if you dont tell them that something unusual is happening. Always report anything unusual even if you think it is nothing. If it IS nothing they will tell you but you may not realize that the little ache in your heel (or whatever the new symptom is) may actually be the start of a severe problem so REPORT anything unusual and dont be afraid to use the phone to call between appts if you need to.

please relax I believe a big part of all these answers are people well more than likely answer if something negative had happened and others don't say much at all and also that with the millions of prescriptions still dispensed with these medication you are in fine shape. sadly with almost any medication otc and prescription there is no real way to find who might get the serious side effects. This same story can go with just about anything we take. Then you add interactions of other things be it food Vitamins something else some people may have been taking at the same time. I really feel you have nothing to worry about. Chuck1957 please don't worry and calm down this is the hard part about a medication that is so widely used but should be used by only the specialist that know what is going on and the chances of any serious problems with any medication. And at this point you are doing better than you have or were and if any doughs please call your physician Your friend Chuck. AND to all these poor people be it the medication or something else I hope all these studies that are going on well bring fast and speedy results to everyone's problems and hope it is a easy fix. My heart goes out to each and every one of you. God bless you all.

I have been fighting cancer and still am, Then because I went back to work after the leg, I screwed my disability up after 45 years of working. But learned a lot during this time I have kept up with pharmacy. But anyway I talked to a few pharmacist I know, And also have not gotten any urgent message's about this class of medication. I am going to call the board of pharmacy today and see if there is some more info. About this. I was not a regular Technician I took special classes in science and focused on drugs and what different things meant even the Pharmacist would come to me and ask questions about many medications. I believe many unexplained things in drugs many times there is a reason. And all of these antibiotic's we really do have to keep our own eyes open and check them out. A lot of doctors out there should not even be.. Many all they know about a drug is what the salesman tell them but I never dough a patient it is there body they know it better than anyone. There are a lot of things that can be possible we all have our own chemical system going through our bodies and the drug is a different chemical all together. And just because a drug does something to someone does not mean it is going to happen to everyone. But many drug studies are done on a small scale be it with people or mice, The real trials are when they are approved for Prescription use and millions of people are taking these medications and if enough people don't turn in side effects etc. to the Dea or food and drug administration you may never know of some of the serious side effects that are going on. But the medication's we are all talking about have very patient effects and really are for bad Infections not for a minor skin problem or UTI, And do have different risk then the average medication. With luck and more studies they may find a good answer for all of these different side effects and it could be very simple. But for many these drugs have been life savers. But bottom line is we are all different and for the amount of this class of medication dispensed and used thank God this does not happen to everyone, Just like any other medication be it a prescription or an over the counter medication we all react differently to these because we are all different. And just like one heart pill you give it to the wrong person it can kill them, But the right person it could give them many more years of life. Or you can never tell what is going to happen when you get an interaction with another drug or a type of natural medication so anything could cause problems with any given group of people. Just for all of these with all these sad stories of what has happened to them. I hope they do some more research and find out why these things happened and be able to correct it and give them back there quality of life that they had before taking this medication. I hope this is able to be followed and people understand some of what I am saying and it makes some since. Just don't give up hope the answer could be just around the corner. But we sure don't need to scare the heck out of people because as with any prescription there are a lot of problems with them as far as how each person well react to the medicine. Just because a Doctor say's here take this and you well be better, We also have to look out for ourselves too. all of you have a good day and I WISH YOU NOTHIG BUT THE BEST. CHUCK1957

Weren't you told that some people adverse reactions only come out after 7 months and some took 2-3 FQ treatments over 2-3 years and whamo suddendly they are hit and knocked off their feet ... never connecting the dots for for years... Even 10-20 years. FQs damage the Mitichondria, which we are still fighting the FDA on, but thank God, we managed to get another blackbox put on it 9 days ago May 12/16 ... That ALL FQs cannot be given any longer for colds, sinus infection, pink eye, UTIs, pre surgery for preventative bacterial infections... no more FQ for any minor bacterial infections and right on the FDA site it list a few more adverse reactions of still the dozens and dozens and dozens that have not been acknowledged still... Links to Mitochindria and DNA damage. Many have been misdiagnoised for ALS, Parkinson's, Alsymers, Fibromagyia, Lyme, cancer, and rare dieases too. We still have a long hard fight. Many believe these antibiotics need to be pulled off the market entirely... These are actually Chemotheraputic drugs! Yes! Even some fatal patients that survicec cancer many just ended up dying because of Cipro, levaquin and the dozens of Fluoroquinolones that are given out like candy.

There is so much more. Best thing is to educate yourself so you can make an informed decision if your health and life is worth losing for a simple bacterial cold or pink eye or a UTI. Now doctors will be able to say your infection was complicated... to cover there ass. There are many good doctors who know for years not to give FQs or any antibiotics unless your life depebded on it... But there are not too many good doctors like that or doctors who innocently gave FQs to there patients believing the big pharmascuetical monsters and the FDA, commissioner and her husband have millions of damages and deaths on their hands for sitting and hiding the scientific evidence of mitochondria damage. I hope this is published because this is the truth and the world needs to know in order to protect their loved ones lives. Thx