Cipro: A Cautionary Tale

Sharing Stories

July 11, 2022 at 10:17 p.m.

Pills...sometimes helpful, sometimes not.

...by Kay Marie

In 2012, the day after an amazing performance of music and dance in St. Petersburg, Russia, I became ill. We soon learned that Russia had two medical systems, one for Russians and another for visitors. EuroMed arrived in my hotel room to determine if I was well enough to fly to Moscow. Without speaking any English, he took my blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, and gave a thumbs up.
In Moscow, I spent three days in bed with increasingly serious symptoms of Traveler's Diarrhea. I tried chicken soup, ginger ale, electrolytes, Imodium, and more until I realized I'd need to break out the antibiotic my doctor recommended for this trip, Cipro. In an effort to salvage the last leg of my trip and to be able to fly home, I started the prescription. While it did not significantly improve my symptoms, I did manage to leave my room for a couple of hours to take the subway to Red Square. Then, I started to feel an uncomfortable tightness in my Achilles tendons. I managed the flights home with some difficulty.
Since I was still ill when I arrived home, I visited my doctor that same day. He told me I was suffering from the well-known adverse effects of Cipro (tendonitis) as well as the original illness. I was issued new medicines and told never to take Cipro again. He told me not to stress my Achilles for six weeks—no stairs or hills.
I could never have guessed at that point how life-altering the damage from those few pills had been. The Cipro affected my mitochondrial function impacting my heart, neurological system, and my entire musculoskeletal system. Since then, at times, I’ve walked with a cane, had paralyzing muscle spasms, suffered a heart attack, and experienced confounding neuropathies. I can no longer play on the floor with my grandchildren, walk more than a couple of miles, climb stairs, sit comfortably through a movie, ride a bike or kayak.
It’s been ten years and my diagnosis is chronic pain syndrome, caused by fluoroquinolones. This is the second time I've been injured by antibiotics, and it is my sincere hope not to take any more in my lifetime. Unfortunately, miracle drugs have hurt me more than they helped.

Kay Marie is a Washingtonian, sharing a cautionary tale about a drug that has caused her a lot of problems.

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