Mistake

Thank you. The idea horrifies me, I must say, but you never really know till you try, or at least till you investigate.

manc1

[QUOTE=Mistake;8622274] and he has also been damaged by a "medecine", though not nearly as badly as I have and not visibly, only his digestion - by Celbrex, which was subsequently banned or withdrawn.

Doctors are prescribing that here at the moment.

Easterndawn

[QUOTE=manc1;8633625] I have been taking Celebrex for over a year now for arthritis with no side effects at all I take 200mg a day, without it I would not be able to get around and hold down a full time job. I also have Hypertension and was advised by my Dr. that the prescribed dosage would be the highest amount that I could have due to the fact that it can cause blood pressure to rise in higher dosages. I have had no side effects but because this is an antiflamitory drug I did know that stomach problems could arise as it can with all drugs of this type. This drug was prescribed when I was living in Canada and I have been able to continue it back in UK.

I do empathize with what has and is happening to you, but I do not think that painting all medical practices or Pharma companies with the same brush is correct. Many people live longer and very productive lives with the help of drugs, unfortunately things do go wrong as with yourself.

Perhaps instead of using up whatever strength and mobility you have at the moment, you should be chanelling it into getting your living situation under control and maybe by doing that you will be able to go forward in a more positive way.

Mistake

[QUOTE=Easterndawn;8633778] That's great. I'm really pleased for you. You're lucky to have a good doctor, as well. Did he warn you about the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and noty to drink alcohol? And that they have introduced a Black Box Warning for it? And that it's a COX–2 inhibitor, like Bextra and Vioxx, which have both been withdrawn?
Unfortunately, many doctors aren't so well-informed or so thorough and scrupulous. (Iatrogenic illness - illness caused by medecine - is the 4th most common cause of death in the USA - approximately 200,000 a year, and those are only the officially acknowledged ones - and only the deaths, it doesn't include the people who a just ill or crippled longterm. So it's hardly rare.) And it's obvious that, if everybody who took a particular drug weer to be damaged, that drug wouldn't be used, or not for long. However, as I have already pointed out, a drug can be approved in one country and not approved, or withdrawn, in another, and the side-effects listed are completely differnent in different countires. Those are facts and I can prove them if you wish, although I'd rather not spend the time. I'm making a website in Spanish and in French and the links will be there, for lots of people, not just one person on one message board. It's hard work, with only one brian cell.

The "revolving door syndrome" is a fact,as well. It is known, demonstrated and acknowledged by governments and by doctors, etc. There are no arguments about it - it's a statistical fact taht has been known for ages. And there are a few drug compàny whistle-blowers now, who are revealing what does go on. If you are interested, I will find and send you links to the information, such as the recent Pfizer case (just one of many examples, but it's the one that had the stiffest fine – they're going to introduce prison sentences now, because the fines are never as big as the profits) and many books, scientific reports and all kinds of stuff, buit obviously I won't bother unless you ask, which I don't think you will.


I doubt it. I think it's very difficult to empathise about things one hasn't experienced, unless one is exceptionally imaginative and sensitive. It'd be awful if we all empathised with all suffering all the time – we'd all be in floods of tears non-stop! Just imagine!

Oh dear – have I painted all medical practices with teh same brush? How very wrong and foolish of me. Do please point out where I have done that and i will correct uit at once. But I don't think you can, because I don't think I have.

I know three thalidomide people, by the way. When you think that that was just to stop nausea in pregnancy...

Er, wasn't that why I started this thread? Wasn't that what it was about, in the first place? Isn't that what I'm doing and why I'm thrilled that I may be leaving here next week? I don't think you can have read it all.

And if you think that all victims should be like most are and only think of their own selfish little selves, then fine – perhpas that's how you would respond and certainly it's how most respond – nearly all. However, a few people, a very few (and i'm one) believe that the best way to “go forward in a more positive way” is to use our misfortune to help (or warn) other peopñe. (no, not against medical practices – do be reasonable – but against these antibiotics and about the danger of blindly trusting and never checking anything.) It's what I've done with all my misfortunes and with all my experiences, fortunate or unfortunate. It's my philosohy of life and it's what makes me happy, as well. I can never be a wonderful person like Motehr Theresa or Soeur Emmanuelle, in fact I'm quite a bad person, despite my efforts, but I do try to be good and I do everything I cna to help anyone and everything. That s my philosophy, my nature and my joy and I couldn't be otehrwise even if I wanted to. I used (and still use) my hellish experiences in marriage to help other people, I used (and still use) my happy experiences with horses, goats and poultry to help othe rpeoople, I spent vast amopunts of tiome in France helping other immigrants to avouid pitfalls or to struggle out of them... It's what i like to do. Sure, i like to be happy museffl, but I could never be happy for an instant if I were just to think of myself.

Lucky me, really.

Mistake

[QUOTE=manc1;8633625] Hi, Manc1. I'll answer properly about it later, or in a few days. I've just spent over an hour on it and must do othe rthings; I w ant to try to write a very concise answer, as am worried that I'm writing too much about it for this part of this forum, which is supposed to be about returning to the U.K!

Cheetah7

You know I know that medicines have their place but some of them scare the hell out of me.

I have been on long term steroids before and have had a bone scan, test for diabetes, eye pressure test for glaucoma, and antacids for a sore stomach - all steroid related.

I know they can be a life saving drug but I also believe that patients have the right to be fully informed of possible side effects so they can CHOOSE whether or not to risk it.

Personally, I choose not to have an ulcer, osteoporosis, diabetes, glaucoma and no, trying to convince me that you have to be on them forever before you get those things doesnt wash either because doctors still test me for it and I already have some of the side effects.

I am currently waiting for an endoscopy to see if the last batch gave me an ulcer.

My sympathies are with you because when side effects of medicine are belittled, played down and swept under the carpet, and patients made to feel silly/guilty for their concerns by 'professionals', when/if they do get unpleasant side effects it is the patient and the patient alone that suffers and not the doctor.

Illness is lonely and when it could have been avoided, it leaves a bitter taste in ones mouth.

Hope you work things out.

Mistake

Exactly.
As I didn't even have an infection, let alone a life-threatening one, I would not have chosen to exchange my entire health, happinness, hope and future for what you can read below::

I was 61 years old, nearly 62. I had smooth, healthy skin, not very difefrent from when I was 40 ()and it was young-looking then. My face was wrinkled, but not my body at all. I didn't have those floppy bits on my upper arms or anything. My muscles were hard, my skin was taut, I ran and danced and rdoe my bike and swam and dived; I drove all over France and Spain o, towing greta long tarolers. My eyesight wa sgood, just a little long-sighted form ageing. I was always laughing and smiling and sweeet.-natured. I had no arthritis an¡¡or anything. I ahd always eaten naturally, lived naturally, never took meds except penicillin for very severe infectuions.

I had no infection, so did not need an antibiotic.
That was in late July 2009.

It started with just slight cramps in my calves, then a twitch in one eyelid. Then I fet drunk and euohoric for five days. On the sixth day, the euphoria had gone, I started to feel miserable and cross and very tired and ill, searched and searched on the intrenet, and by 27th. I had started to discover what was the matter. It was devastating and i was terrified, but the realuity is even worse than feared.

Please note that these effects are irreversible.

During the firts two months, I was obssessed by the longing to commit suicide. I thought about it all the time. This is partly a natural, unsuroprising reaction to the horror of discovering what has happened to you and that nothing can be done about it and partlñy a known chemical effect of these “harmless antibiotics that should be used as a precautionary measure.” Many people are suicidal at the beginning. Then, after a two or three years, some do commit suicide, because they are tired of living in hell.
Hair falling out in showers, have lost about 80% it's still coming out.
Skin quite suddenly, in a period of a few weeks, aged by about 25-30 years on the left side of my face, about 15 years on my lower jaw, about 5 years on right cheek, about 30 years on left arm and 15 on right. The arms are so hideous that they really should be hidden all the time, but it's hot, so i have to expsoe them sometimes. They look like old dead chickens. Skin on legs is similar and often looks as though I'm wearing wrinkled lisle stockings.
My muscles suddenly “melted” after about 7 months, at the same time as the skin collapsed. The arms om ny muscles are are just floppy, soft stuff. No, I mean the muscles of my upper arms are. That's better.
Legs especially, but also chest and other places, are covered with tiny broken and unbroken capillaries, red, blue, purple and even nearly black.
Huge evins everywhere, whereas before my veins weer deep and hidden and nurses had trouble finding them. I look like an anatomical diagram.
Can't have a blood test or any injection in veins, as it produces a terrifying neuropathic reaction, with paralysis, excruciating pain amnd vast armies of guiant fire-ants racing uop and down inside my arm, so that i get hsytericala nd scream for my mummy and beg them to amputate arm.
Constant neuropathic sensations of pain and parathesia, veyr bad undeed. Pain everywhere, except my tomngue, so far. Pain in eyeballs, in face, in bones (?Impossible) and evrywhere.
All tendons are being destroyed; they are tight, rigid, painful and could snap at any moment. This includes face, fingers, everything.
Tendons in feet get so painful taht I can't even rest my feet lightly on the floor, or eevn on a pillow, have to sit with them in a bucket of icy water. (This is a lot better, though.)
All joints are agony as with arthriotis, but of course nthing would be vsisble of na x-ray, because it's the FQ taht is destroying them inside. This includes hiips, vertebrae, pelvis, knees, hands, everything, face, fingers, everything. Even my jawbones and cheekbones are being destroyed – i can feel it and I know it is so, because other paeople have it and they've had holes found in their jaws and cheekbones. (they're American, so they can have all these tests and so on, nit taht it helps them at all.)
I will obviously have to have hip and knee replacements soon, which I'n suer i'd b¡never have be¡needed, but of course I can't have injectuions or blood tests and Id be bound to get C,Diff or the otehr one, then I'd have a terrible reaction to any antibiotic and anyway the only strong one is a flox one, so I'd die in even more disgusting agaony.
I have tron or crushed or damaged a rotor cuff in wrost (by picking up a tangerine!) and anothe rin shoulder, but refise operation as it'd kill me.
The most common causes of death from fluoroquinolone toxicity is hosputal infections - 20,000 a yera from FQtox C,Difficil in Franec alone.
Another is rhabdomiliosis (?) from wasted muscles getting into bloodstream.
Another is breathing difficulties.
One or other of those will probably get me and I don't want the operatiom-C-diff one. It's all so extrelmely YUCKY and so depressing.
Lungs very painful and am always, always out of breath to some extent, often so much that can't speak, breathe as though had just run a marathon, or had emphysema.
Hands swell, don't know why.
Have lost a lot of eyesight and now have to wear x3 specs to see any detail, even for cooking or cleaning. It's all blurred and unfocussed. Getting worse – must buy x4 sopecs soon, if they exist, as even x3 aren't powerful enough now.
Tinnitus.
Can't go in sunshine, as even half an hour produced a large crop of very unhealthy-looking moles. Also burning sensation after a short time. Before, I could spend alld ay in the hot sun.
Strange and nasty-looking white lumops unders kin.
Old-people's skin – papery, freckley, discoloured.
A tiny bump produces a massive bruise that lasts for months. One is still there after nine months.
Tiny sct¡ratches take wweeks to close and leave huge scars with a discoloured area around them.
Dizzy, disoriented, fall over, walk like a dri¡unk, waeving., (this is much better, in fact nearly gone.)
reverse letters and words. Everything I write is corrected and recorrected, but still contains errors.
Heart is very stressed. Will it stop? Dunno..
Fingernails and toenails were smooth, but now have deep furrows and ridges.
If I kneel on a fold in the sheet, or if I lean my elbow on my leg and am wearing a jumoper, the pattern of the sheet or the knitting will still be deeply impressed on my leg at least half an hour later. I carried the opattern of a lace curtain for an hour or so. If I press my fingertip into my arm or leg for 1-2 seconds, the deep mark of nail lasts for 10-15 minutes and the dent around it 2 minutes. (No collagen.)
A few minutes after I wake up, whetehr in the night or the morning, my jaw starts to shake, violently and visibly. Ir does stop aftera while, so it's not too abd now I'm used to it.
Very violent tremor in arms and hands, so that i spill tea, can't feed myself with a spoon, etc. really bad. Sometimes can't even just pick something up.
Uncontrolled movements – reach out for a box of matches, send it flying across van; collect it, open it, send all matches flying.
Hallucinations – not too bad, but do gets cared sometimes, as some peolle have a helluva time.
A few seizures, but only petit mal and I think taht's stopped.
Violent allergy to soy, even a tracem, even soy lecithin in a vitamin tablet.
Extreme pain, everywhere.
Difficulty in walking; often can't walk more than a efw hobbley steps. Haven't walked freely since last juily.
Agarophobia – but taht's mainly beccause I don't want people to see me like this,
tics and fasciculatiosn, amnywhere and everywhere
Foul taste in mouth
Extremne weakness, often can't sit up, can't lift a bottle of water
Swollen ankles
Depersonalisation, derealisation
Demotivation
Loss of affect and concern
Urinary problems.
Ancient wounds reappear and re-open. Even the tear from when my children were born reappeared and swelled to huge and tender lump, although originally it was nothing, hardly even knew it was there and had completely forgotten it. Took months to go. Away again. Otehr old wounds also reappear.
Earache, sore throat
Floaters and falsghers flashers in vision
Extreme short-term memory loss
do stupid things such as trying to put on a pair of glasses – on top of the pair I'm already wearing. Takes me several minutes to work out why they won't go on.
A sort of over-stimulation, speediness, but with no energy or diorection, just nervy
nighmares
A horribel, horrible sensation that all parts of me have been oput together wrongly or are somehow just Wrong – I have to keep opsuhing and adjusting them, as they drive me mad. Feel as though toenails , fingernaisl, mouth are fitted wrionhgly and need to be readjusted – it's hard not to get obssessive, pushing at them.
can't swallow (sometimes)
pain – incredible
Peripheral neuropathy is spreading to right arm and to all of my back
Terrible weakness, trembling all through
Dying feeeling, in fact it feels as though I'm nearly dead
Purple legs and feet. Often blue toes. Fingers go white or sometimes dark blue, almost black.
Compleet inability to feel pleasure or interest in anything or anyone. No sense of joy, eevn in birdsong or flowers.
Crying fits.

Lots more horrible effects – those are just a efw. It's really total destruction of CNS, PNS and all collagen. Collagen is what holds your body together, makes it tough yet elastic, it's in everything.
I'm like a garden that's been sprayed wuith glyphosate.

Exactly. I have the hospital reports, saying that theer is nothing wrong with me, that it is impossible for an antibiotic to do this and that i am just puitting it on (for the fun of riding in a filthy ambulance?) or am a hypochondriac (despite the fact that I've only been to doctor or hospital once in over ten years.)

Yet we're supposed to shut up, smile and not mind!

And not warn other people!


Thanks.

Cheetah7

If you dont mind me asking, what was the antibiotic they prescribed?

I told my consultant I will never again go on steroids and I have been told that if I turn up at casualty with an asthma attack that 'I will be given them'.

Who I would like to know, would look after me if I get osteoporosis/diabetes/glaucoma?

Because each subsequent dose I have to the long period of steroid therapy given at high doses, increases that risk.

So can they force that medication on me? Now there is a question.

Easterndawn

[QUOTE=Mistake;8633885] Obviously, you have taken what I said as a slight against you personally and yes, I was told about the possibility of stroke and heart attack and that is why they have me on the dosage that they have, but I do ask questions and before actually taking any drug I get on the internet and investigate the side effects and then make an informed choice whither to take or not take. Then again I could also get those type of reactions from smoking, which is a higher posibility than taking the medication.
I acknowledge the fact that you are trying to warn people about the adverse reactions to drugs and was not trying to undermind what you were saying or what you are feeling as everyone is allowed to express there own opinion. I did find your response to my response very much on the defensive. I do wish you luck in your quest

manamama

Is this an apology?

Easterndawn

No, as I have nothing to apologize for, on thread we are all able to voice our opinions.

manamama

True opinions but how about a bit of support.........like ALL the support you have been given on the 50s and 60s?

Give something back to those less fortunate!

Easterndawn

Support comes in many ways and shapes and from many different places. I do appreciate all the support that I was given and have made that fact well known and I have given support back.

As I said I do wish her luck and I do feel bad that anyone has to live the way she lives.

Mistake

It was Norfloxacino, but all teh quinolone and fluoroquinolone antibiotics are the same. They have different names in different countytries, so you have to check the generic name and whetehr it's a quin or FQ.

I'm sorry - I thought i put links in previous posts. I tyhink i did, in fact, but here are some and yiou'll see that they lead to others.
http://fqresearch.org
http://levaquinadverseeffect.com
http://blog.pharmtech.com/2008/07/09...o-antibiotics/ You can see at the bottom of the page where I first discovered what was wrong and an update that I've just posted.
http://quinolonesournois.blogspot.com/ is mine, butit's in french and I havenm't updated it for ages.

and theer are lots more, but yu'll find the, as one link will ead to others.
don't forget www.askapatient.com

On the FDA (Food and Drugs Authority) website, yiou can read all teh NDAs and teh continual updates to package inserts and prescribing info, as more and horrible eefects are reported.

Well, Princess, i think it's best to make sure taht yoru doctor has it writ large in yoru notes taht you will not take x,y or z. They'll oprbably still give it to you, but at least youy can sue afterwartds! (if you liove long enough, becaus elawsuits drag on for years.)

I would put in your notes that you refuse all NSAIDS unles you give written consent and taht you refuse all fluoroquinolnes and quinolones, compleetly. (they really aren't necessary, even against anthrax! But they're terrfically profuitable.)

Or one could perhaps have one of those bracelets - forgotten the anme - but honestly, the way things happen nowadays, they're quite capable of ignoring it - if they can even raeread! oops - read.

Well, you gotta larf, or you'd never stop crying.

Beedubya

I have no real answers for you and am dreadfully sorry to hear of your plight.

Please go back to the UK. For all it's faults I don't think any other country treats it's ageing population so well.

There may be no cure for what has happened to you with the meds you have been given, and thank you for your warning to others, we are all so blase when the doctor gives us a prescription thinking he is "God" in some cases and just assuming he knows best.......

There are many forms of social housing, council housing, government help. No way would you be sleeping in a van on a campsite if you were your age in the UK. Yes, the weather may not be the greatest, but I invariably found the people and agencies to be helpful and caring.

There is lots of help out there for somebody in your situation. I agree about suicide to some extent, but that is a last resort and can only bring unhappiness to others in your family.

Take the offers of help you are being given, sometimes we need to swallow our pride and accept help when we need it.

6 months from now when you are back HOME you will probably feel very differently to how you do now.

I wish you the very best in whatever you decide to do, your "story" has touched me tonight when I am sitting here unable to find a job, feeling sorry for myself when I am in perfectly good health.

I have heeded your warnings on drugs and bookmarked the pages you have given.

Take care, I mean that very sincerely and go HOME.

Barb