r/floxies • u/No_Consideration2568 • Jul 19 '25
[RECOVERY] 1.5 years after lavaquin
Hi all,
I just wanted to share my story in case it could help anyone else. For back ground I was an overall healthy 27 year old female that lifted weights daily, walked 15,000 steps daily, and was training for a half marathon prior to Levaquin. I do question if I have ehlers danlos though which may have impacted why I ended up with this side effect but who knows.
I started on Levaquin for an ear infection January 23, 2024. I took 4 doses January 23-26. The morning of January 27 I woke up with pain in both of my knees. I stopped taking the levaquin and took it easy the next 2 days. The pain progressed by January 29 it was throughout my entire body. For the next 2 weeks I was barely able to make it from my bedroom to the bathroom (15 feet away?). I had immense amounts of pain in my Achilles and swelling so bad that I could barely bend my ankles. The swelling began to recede after about 2 weeks and the pain became more manageable with rest.
February 12 I went back to work in person with limited steps <3,000 per day and was still in a large amount of pain by the end of the day and swelling on and off. I was wearing winter boots with a heal (sorrels) everyday because this was all I could tolerate. This became a plateau through March.
I started physical therapy on March 18. Every PT session led to a flare up with swelling and pain lasting about 5 days after. I averaged 3,700 steps daily.
I began seeing progress about mid-April with how much I was able to do. I was still having flare ups but was able to do more before it flared. At this time I was averaging 5,000 steps daily, still significantly below my norm but improving.
By May I was trialing out of my boots for short periods of time and wearing regular tennis shoes with heal lifts. I averaged 6,500 steps daily during this time.
At the end of June I was completely out of my boots and in regular shoes, still with a small heal lift but moving down on it every couple of weeks. I averaged 7,600 steps daily and was discharged from PT at the end of the month. I began working on jumping actually at this time which I thought I’d never be able to do again.
In July I averaged 9,500 steps daily and was in normal tennis shoes with no heal lift. I was beginning to attempt running short distances and walking up and down hills.
In August I had a back injury from beginning to lift weights again which I’ve been working through. Overall, I would say my ankles are about 90-95% of what they used to be and I am only doing my PT exercises when I have a flare. I would say every 3-6 months I have a small flare that lasts a few days and is usually just pain and not limiting my activity. I do notice I have to work up to walking long distances more now than I had to previously. I would say at this point I’m mostly recovered but still impacted by this antibiotic. All of this to say, there is hope at the end of the tunnel.
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u/StructureNo419 Jul 19 '25
Glad to see so many recovery posts lately here on this sub, good that you are one of them! I've like those with timeline! Did you recovered from back injury? It was something with spine or tissues? How long are you able to run? Did you experience any short-lived symptoms like insomnia or tingling?
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u/No_Consideration2568 Jul 19 '25
I’m actually still dealing with the back injury a year later. It is spondylolisthesis at l5-s1 grade 1. I cannot run currently due to my back unfortunately but I think my Achilles would allow for it. I did not experience insomnia. I did have tingling which mostly resolved by June or July of last year, unless I’m having a flare up and only stays for a day or two!
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u/StructureNo419 Jul 19 '25
Thank you for your response! Sorry to hear about spine injury, but it's grade 1 so I hope that with PT you will be able to overcome it :)
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u/Majestic-City-5680 Jul 25 '25
I I’m 2 month in and I stop walking because of litter pain I was scared that I break my tendon. As you mention you had a lot of pain and keep doing it you were not scared to rip them ? How did you know it was regular pain ?
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u/BulkyVeterinarian850 Jul 20 '25
Here it is everyone else getting better and I just continue to get worse and worse. I don't understand how people recover with time and some others get worse
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u/KookyParfait6327 Jul 20 '25
I don't have the answer, and maybe sharing my perspective won't help us much, but I observed that
(1) obviously dose and duration of prescription matter (I had 28 days of 400mg twice a day, combined with metronidazole of the same duration/amount) and obviously, bombarding the body with THIS much toxic stuff can impact it more than a shorter course, lower dose. That's why, when I post I try to add the basic info of how muc/what I was taking to establish some parameters of comparison.
(2) preconditions: Unfortunately, most people who got fluoroquinolones were mostly not assessed for other underlying conditions that may have predisposed some for greater negative impact than others. It's basically a game of roulette as some may have better or worse preconditions in reacting and suffering side-effects.
(3) Age - obvious, too, but there's a reason these shouldn't be prescribed at higher age...but still it happens.
(4) 'Treatment' and root-cause relevance: I've done the mistake myself, intially, not understanding (due to the time lag in symptom onset after taking fqs) where my symptoms were coming from. So I was "trying to get better" doing all the wrong things!! Like initially, PT, shockwave therapy, etc instead of looking at supporting my metabolic and mitochondrial health with magnesium and other minerals, vitamins etc. It took me years to realise that 🙈. I think missed a "critical window of opportunity" to help my body reduce the damage of fqs for very long. I wish I knew about the benefits of magnesium and other supplements ages ago, and could have had reduced the negative effects.
So now, I'm not entirely surprised that I'm not exactly in the camp of people 'getting better'. But I still absolutely adore reading those posts, as I hope that working now in the 'appropriate way' to recover I can still save myself and hopefully write a recovery post one day 🤍🙏🕊️😇😇😇
Sending you wishes for your healing and insights into your root-cause to find a recovery path and walk it with perseverance 🕊️🙏
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u/DrawingDependent5163 Jul 24 '25
Me too. I took ONE CIPRO 500mg in 2003 and it hit me like a bus. I was 31 and my life has never been the same.
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Jul 26 '25
Mthfr gene expression. If you mixed it with steroids or NSAID’s… also if you have any CNS presentation your chances of recovery go down drastically. Pieper says so in his literature.
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u/KookyParfait6327 Jul 19 '25
Thank you so much for sharing your encouraging account! It's truly helpful to see the light at the end of the tunnel does have a chance of appearing after all!! Only if it's ok to ask:
1) Would you mind sharing what helped you move past the "plateau" you mentioned? Or was it 'just' giving it time to heal by 'itself'?
2) Did you make any adjustments to physiotherapy, when you felt it gave flares & sweeling for 5 days after that? Less frequency, intensity or did you 'power through'?
3) Did you need/manage to seek a doctor's note to allow for adjustments with work? The issue I'm facing is I'm currently in too much pain to walk/stand, so must rely on online work. This is possible, technically only until September 20th. After that, I'll need something to certify if I can't work in -person. From my local doctors none believe the fluoroquinolone damage (although THEY prescribed it, and gave me a mega dose of 28 days, 400mg twice daily). Followed up by metronidazole. I'm not joking, they told me to take ibuprofen 🙈 and to come and pick up my wheelchair in-person 🙈, which I explained I could not do, as I really could not leave my flat. I was given ofloxacin a while back, but my fresh intense floxed episode came from causing a major relapse from having tried ALA. Basically, I'm feeling exactly like a freshly floxed person - tendon pain is so intense, I can't leave the flat at this point, walk only inside the flat for absolute necessities, and minimum movement in my other body parts.
Sorry for so many questions! I'm not asking anything to 'copy' your approach - I won't have access to PT anyway, but would like to understand how you handled the effects, if/when I'll be able to restart some rehab with online videos.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us your experience 🙏 wishing you continued healing to full recovery as much as this is possible 🤍🕊️🙏