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I personally experienced the negative affects of fluoroquinolone as well. I did a full course of Cipro and experienced horrible back pain, which was minimized by my doctor until he put me on Levaquin a few weeks later and I had to stop after a few days because the pain was so bad. Six years later I still have some lingering back pain from that incident, seems like it did at least some permanent damage.

It was incredibly hard to deal with, on top of the chronic infection causing me to take the antibiotics in the first place. The most frustrating thing was the seeming indifference I got from many (not all) of the doctors I saw about it.

Condolences for your loss, and my deepest sympathies.

Ugh Levaquin. One of the well-known side effects is a spontaneous Achilles tendon rupture. Horrifying, and I hated taking it.

That's a terrifying side effect.

Don‘t forget about the chronic neuropathy! Some people have hands and feet that will burn and sting until their death.

I had to take moxifloxacin and ciprofloxacin at two different times in my life. Besides the achilles, feet and hand tendon pain, both times I would have severe stinging pain in my scalp for months after taking them. Blessed as I am it went away again.

> As these were a significant contributor to my late wife's suicide.

I can't even imagine how hard it is for you. I am sorry for your loss.

I'm sorry you lost your wife. My wife had a near-death medical experience last year (a stroke, completely unrelated) and I was never as emotionally empty and destroyed as I was during the ten minutes I thought I lost her and subsequent days worrying about her recovery.

You linked an interview with Childrens' Health Defense, an organization whose primary purpose is to argue, categorically, that all vaccinations are dangerous and do not work. They are the largest such organization and their activism has been directly responsible for the growth in resistance to MMR vaccination and later to COVID-19 vaccination.

This does not mean that the point about a class of antibiotics is incorrect, and I understand that there's a possibility of "strange bedfellows" here because of the potential agreement on the matter of, uh, "big pharma". As I see it, one possibility is that you linked the CHD article not knowing this. Another possibility is that you linked the CHD article knowing this, but figuring just because they're wrong about vaccines doesn't tarnish them on this issue. Another possibility is that you generally agree with their position on vaccines.

I'm not here to judge or change your mind, I'm just telling you that I don't have any prior view about whatever fluoroquinolone antibiotics are. I read the first half of your post wanting to do more investigation. Because of the CHD link inclusion, I am now predisposed not to believe this is a real issue. I am a non-medical social scientist but I have spent a lot of the COVID period publishing work about vaccination. Anti-vaxx stuff is a complete deal-breaker for me. And if your reason for posting was to persuade an audience, I think that's the opposite of what you want.

I agree that when people cite bad sources, it harm's their argument. Yes, dead commenters, the messenger matters.

I'll also state I think deleting vaccine skeptics does more harm on HN than good. Let their ignorance be argued, lest they get a persecution complex and dig in more deeply. Only delete, in my opinion, those that cite disinformation or misinformation.

> Let their ignorance be argued

eh, "Disprove [the situation you just said was emotionally gutting] wasn't caused by [nonsense I can write down in 5 seconds but will take 2+ orders of magnitude to respond to]" is pretty classic sealioning/asymmetric trolling. Maybe if they put up a claim with evidence, otherwise it's just low-effort shit posting and not worth much more than a downvote.

The interview is where it is, which I have no control over. I would have posted Dr. B's interview where ever it was as it is related to the Big Pharma book release. He is considered one of the worlds experts on drug adverse advents.

That there are adverse advents with multiple (All?) Big Pharma products is also something I have no control over.

I supplied a link to my late wife's page where all the FDA warnings are linked to directly. The other links can be ignored if that is your desire.

There are many different numbers floating around, but let me give you a source that claims a 0.14–0.4% "prevalence of FQ-induced tendon injury". That's at least one in a thousand.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921747

They are also absolutely known and proven to cause permanent pain in the hand and feet (neuropathies) in some patients and "long lasting" anxiety, depression, hallucinations.

Those are just a few of the serious long term side effects they can cause.

Here is a good overview.

https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4087/2/3/17

Let me conclude that sometimes they are the right choice to save someone's life or prevent serious health consequences due to infection, but in the majority of cases there would be alternative antibiotics available.

Speaking of Fluoroquinolones and Cipro (Ciprofloxacin) specifically, I personally had bad experiences with it causing tendon damage and severe back pain, though fortunately the damage healed and the back pain cleared within a couple days after stopping my Cipro course early and switching to a different antibiotic.

Interesting. What is the mechanism of action that could be causing this? Are other antibiotics safer in this regard? What are the most commonly used antibiotics?

Extremely sorry for your loss

> What is the mechanism of action that could be causing this?

It is barely understood. Fluoroquinolones are known to cause: Mineral and metal chelation, permanent DNA damage, permanently changed unhealthy epigenetic state changes, increased oxidative stress, permanent damage to mitochondrial DNA.

> Are other antibiotics safer in this regard?

Besides aminoglycosides like gentamicin which is now liberally used topically because internal usage causes permanent hearing loss, most antibiotics in use generally do not carry a notable risk of lifelong disability.

> What are the most commonly used antibiotics?

That very much depends on the infection being treated, but let me just guarantee you that there would almost always be an antibiotic available that is a safer alternative to fluoroquinolones.

Unfortunately, those antibiotics are generally strictly controlled reserve antibiotics you get IV in a hospital, which you would only get to avoid death or other serious consequences, and just won't get for that treatment resistant gonorrhea, where fluoroquinolones can already indeed be the only freely available alternative. Then there are also substances that just aren't available everywhere, like streptogramins which in Europe you can probably only get in France.

Thank you.

No one really knows what causes these issues.

Any other antibiotic is safer. These should have been removed from the market a long time ago. Just read the other comments in this tread for examples.

My condolences for your loss... And thank you for the important information!

The FDA warnings read like any other medication. This article does not point out why this is specifically worse, or how "rare" of an occurrence it is is or isn't. I can't know from this article wether the cause is this antibiotic.

https://www.amr.gov.au/about-amr/amr-australia/amr-and-anima...