medication side effects

Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs): We’re ALL at Risk

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adverse drug reactions

I’m lying in my bed, with my arms and legs straight out. I figured out pretty fast that any stress whatsoever on the tendons, makes things worse for days, weeks even. “Stress” includes not only trying to walk or use my arms or legs for any reason at all, but also simply bending my arms, or my knees, or my fingers, in one position for too long. What’s “too long”?  Maybe 3-5 minutes or so. I can’t use crutches or a wheelchair, because both of those involve use of my arms and shoulders and hands, which are also out of commission. I can’t type or use the computer, because every tendon in my fingers, hands, wrists, and arms are affected and severely painful. I can’t hold up a book to read, because the weight of the book is too much and I can’t bend my arms, without increasing the tendon pain. The weight of the sheets on my toes causes severe pain in the tendons there. There must be tendons around the eye muscles too, because it hurts simply to move my eyes. So I lay there in my bed, with my arms and legs flat out, with my head still and my eyes closed, waiting. Waiting for what, I’m not sure. It’s hard to believe that I went jogging and bike riding and swimming only a few days ago. I’m also in shock. How in the world could a simple antibiotic that I took for a simple UTI do this to me?

My Journey into the Frustrating World of ADR’s Begins

In March 2010 I took the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin for a simple UTI, and within days became one of the millions of people in this country who experience an Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) every year to a pharmaceutical drug that is deemed “safe” for use. My adverse reaction, as extreme as it was, unfortunately is not as “rare” as the public is led to believe. It turns out there were tens of thousands of other people, and possibly many times more that, also suffering from the same and similar reactions as I was as a result of this class of very popular antibiotics. There were no “Black Box Warnings” on my drug insert, and the warnings that were listed on the insert didn’t even remotely accurately describe what I was going through then, and continue to go through today.

I’ve been disabled ever since, often times going months without leaving the house, or even getting out of bed, as a result of those few pills. As I lay there waiting, I didn’t know if I was waiting to die or to live. With no known treatment, cure, or detox, or even any idea of why this happens in the first place to some of us, there was nothing left to do but wait.  Whatever was known about these reactions came from the victims themselves, observations painstakingly accumulated over time, sharing information that was now available on the internet. Pharma, the FDA, and the medical and pharmacy professions were noticeably and conveniently absent in having any knowledge, concern, clue, or curiosity about these reactions and why this happens in some people, or what to do about it. Their role in all this apparently ended the minute I took the drug.

I’ve had plenty of time to lay around and think about things in the past five years, given that I can’t do much else.  And understandably, I’m not too happy about this situation. It didn’t take me too long to figure out that my life, or what was left of it, was simply going to be a nameless, faceless, long lost forgotten statistic when it came to my ADR. There was no help on the way for me from the medical profession, the FDA, or Pharma to help me with my ADR, and as far as I could tell, absolutely no interest in learning anything from it by any of these parties either. And if there was one thing that became quite clear, it’s that everything was skewed in everyone else’s favor but mine when it came to my ADR. My physicians, pharmacists, the FDA, and of course Pharma, didn’t want to even acknowledge my ADR due to culpability and liability issues – which meant none of the numerous physicians I saw even bothered to report my ADR to anyone anywhere or the FDA. Without this acknowledgement, insurance companies didn’t want to pay for any “excessive testing” outside of the basic “Top 40 Diagnoses” screening tests for a non-existent problem. With “nothing wrong” on paper, I was denied any form of disability payments and probably considered to be a hypochondriac and/or malingerer trying to commit disability fraud. Even the legal profession, as hungry as they are for business, wasn’t interested in me once they found out I took the generic, since there is no legal recourse available with generic drugs. Everyone else in this chain of events walked away from my ADR unscathed, except, of course, me. I’m the one stuck living with it every minute of every day, with no assistance, and no end in sight. I’m the one scouring the internet, reading everything I can about my symptoms, reviewing the available research, paying for my own medical testing, looking for something, anything that will give a clue as to what this drug did to me and how to fix it.

The only other thing I can say about this scenario is that I’m actually not alone in my frustration and anger about this. There are millions of people out there who have been harmed by a pharmaceutical drug, vaccine, or medical device, in the same boat I am. Most of us have felt this same sense of abandonment by “the system”. Each one of us does the best we can, trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces of a life destroyed by a pharmaceutical prescribed to us by the medical profession, and deemed “safe” for use by Pharma and the FDA.

We’re All Sitting Ducks, Sacrificial Lambs, and Play Russian Roulette When it Comes to ADR’s

Several issues have become quite clear to me since I got hit with my ADR. First, is that for the most part, everyone, from Pharma to physicians and pharmacists, to end consumers like you and me, accept that ADR’s are a part of the deal. A lot of rules and regulations are in place in a supposed effort to ensure that a pharmaceutical is safe for “most” of the population. And therein lies the unspoken fact. At the end of the day, no matter how much effort has been put into safety, it’s accepted that there will always be some people that will react negatively to a drug. There’s an implicit acceptance, regardless of how unpalatable it might be, that “some always have to be sacrificed for the greater good”. We just hope that sacrificial lamb won’t be us or those we love.

Secondly, is that pharmaceutical use, and their ADR’s, are here to stay. In the US, nearly 70% of the population is on one prescription drug, more than 50% are on two, and 20% are actually on five or more prescription medications.  Between 1990 and 2008, U.S. spending on prescription drugs increased from $40 billion to $234 billion. And this doesn’t even include all the over the counter meds. As a society, “Just Say No” has never worked for any drug, and that includes legal pharmaceuticals. Increasing right along with this pharmaceutical epidemic, are the “serious and fatal event” ADR’s, which have quadrupled in the past decade, even by the woefully inaccurate and under reported FDA records. Every single person reading this is at risk for experiencing one or more ADR’s in their lifetime. These ADR’s may be mild and transient, or severe, disabling, and long term or lifelong. They might even be those “fatal events” the fast talking monologues on the drug commercials always warn you about. The point is, no one reading this is safe or exempt from them.  Even people who are very “anti-Pharma” may find themselves on the operating table in the ER someday, being given any number of pharmaceuticals without the opportunity for “informed consent”. We are all at risk, and basically sitting ducks when it comes to ADR’s. I rarely took any medications or supplements, and had only taken antibiotics a few times in the first 50 years of my life. Despite that, I let my guard down once — it only took a few pills, and there was no going back from that mistake. I read the drug insert carefully, which talked about how a little transient mild nausea or GI upset might be the worst ADR, and further on down, mentioned “if you develop a pain in your Achilles tendon, call your doctor”. There was no hint in these warnings that these symptoms could be so extreme, permanent, disabling, and that “my doctor” had never heard of it and had no clue what to do about it either.

Third, is that pharmaceutical companies of course want to minimize, downplay, and outright deny ADR’s because they don’t want to open themselves up to culpability and liability issues and lose profits. From the limited “safety studies” that Pharma does on a drug pre-market, to “publishing bias” of only publishing research studies with data in their favor, to minimizing and hiding the adverse effects as they sell their products to the medical profession and us, Pharma does all they can to get a drug to market and profit from it. Once the drug gets to market, the big experiment occurs, as the drug is unleashed en masse on the general population. For those taking the drug, it’s essentially a game of Russian Roulette, no matter how “informed” you are. At that point in time, if things go wrong, it usually takes tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people suffering severe ADR’s before any action, if any, is taken (think Thalidomide, DES, and more recently, Vioxx). YOUR life may be wrecked, but it’s no big deal to Pharma, the FDA, or even your doctors. If you experience a severe ADR, their lives will continue on, while your life becomes just another long lost statistic, simply considered the “cost of doing business”.

Pharma: The Untouchable Behemoth

It can seem pretty hopeless at times. Physicians and pharmacists get their extremely biased information on the drugs they prescribe directly from Pharma via Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives. These reps get more training in marketing and selling, than in knowing anything about the products they’re selling. If the more curious and ethical physicians actually do take the time to look up the research, they will see biased research studies funded by Pharma, all minimizing the risks while highlighting the benefits. The FDA, who relies on Pharma to do the research studies and present the findings on safety and efficacy of drugs, as well as relies on Pharma as a large source of funding for their own organization, is equally in the dark and basically impotent, as they now see Pharma as their main client to serve, and not the public. And we, the people?  We’re the sacrificial lambs, the sitting ducks, and the true massive post surveillant “research study” when we play Russian Roulette with safety and efficacy of any drug Pharma puts out. The icing on the cake for Pharma is that they can laugh all the way to the bank, no matter how many people are harmed, in the meantime. If, despite Pharma’s best attempts, a drug indeed is found to be unsafe, their main goal is to sell the hell out of it to keep bringing in profits until they are absolutely and overwhelmingly forced to remove it from the market.

This is nothing really new. If you live long enough, or read history, you will see the same old story over and over again, whether in the pharmaceutical industry or any other industry. And if you think your doctor or the medical profession is any smarter than the rest of us, think again. As I discussed here, in another writing:

“My own mother was “prescribed” cigarettes – yes, that’s right – as part of her “prenatal care”, she was told to start smoking by her doctor while pregnant with my younger sister “to prevent hemorrhoids”.  We can laugh, or be aghast now at such a notion, but an entire generation, including the medical profession at the time, was repeatedly brainwashed by the corporations manufacturing these products, and they would leave no stone unturned in promoting the “health and safety” of their products for the sole interest of their own profits.”  (See:  here, and here.  And for anyone wondering, the ‘science’ behind this is that nicotine constricts blood vessels.  And yes, this is exactly how my mother started smoking at age 32).

I provide this example simply to highlight the fact that medical professionals are subject to the same corporate and cultural forces that we all are.  Drugs that would never be blithely and indiscriminately prescribed today, such as Thalidomide, DES, Vioxx, and many others were routinely prescribed by physicians in the not too distant past, and this apparently includes “cigarettes” as well. The point being, is the drug your doctor prescribing you today the result of a judicious, prudent, and well thought out approach deemed absolutely necessary for your health?  Or is it simply the latest fad promoted by Pharma, the next big blockbuster drug for their coffers, being offered you even when safer, less expensive, or better alternatives may exist?

“Your doctor” is subject to the same forces everyone else is, and they happen to be a very important target for Pharma in particular.  Most physicians are honorable, trying to do the best they can with the information they have, but the fact is, they might not know any more than you do if what they’re selling (prescribing) you is a necessary and lifesaving drug, or a ‘cigarette’ of a drug. It turns out, when it came to my particular ADR, plenty of medical professionals have been hit and suffer from the same ADR’s. I sure wish I had known that before I took the drug, because now I’m one of them.

The odds are overwhelmingly in Pharma’s favor and against us.  And despite everything I’ve written, I’m not really “anti-pharmaceutical”.  I’m well aware pharmaceuticals and modern medicine have helped and saved many lives. I happen to love both science and medicine, and I’m a big believer in using the fruits of ethical, curiosity-driven science and medicine in its truest, most honorable and noble form — to improve the health and welfare of individuals and society as a whole. The problem is, that’s not a description of current day Pharma. Phrases more apt to come to mind with the word “Pharma” now include:  Corporate Greed, Profits at All Costs, America’s legal Drug Cartel, White Collar Drug Dealers, and  “Pharmageddon”. The medical profession is allowing themselves to be reduced to Pharma’s “drug pushers”, pushing pills for everything and everybody even if they’re not necessary or downright dangerous, with drugs as the first and sole option offered even when other options such as healthy lifestyle changes can help.

Given these odds, is there anything we can do to protect ourselves? Is there anything we can do to demand change?

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was first published on June 8, 2015.

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Iatrogenic Illness and Pharmaceutical Side Effects

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iatrogenic illness

Are you familiar with the phrase “iatrogenic illness”? An affirmative answer is more likely among the readers of this website than the public at large, but I would argue that even we (those of us who frequent this website) don’t give it the attention it deserves. In fact, if we changed the way we looked at iatrogenic illness, it could reframe the way we look at the entirety of medicine.

The Effect of Side Effects

Iatrogenic means an ailment that is actually caused by a medical examination or treatment. Perhaps the reason it receives less attention than it should lies in the fact that the classification would usually require an admission of guilt from the person most likely to identify it. Most doctors aren’t inclined to draw attention to the fact that something they did caused a new problem.

Consequently, we tend to associate iatrogenic illnesses with things like infection after a surgery, where it happens despite the medical team’s best efforts to prevent it. And, the only time we weigh the iatrogenic effect of pharmaceuticals being administered comes in extreme cases, like chemotherapy, where the patient and their family often weigh the quality of life versus the quantity.

However, we really should start considering the quantity of effect versus quality much sooner in life.

The Primary Effect

Think about the early development of a new drug and then consider this old phrase:

“There are no side effects, only effects.”

When a new drug is in development, the chemical engineers have a sense of what the desired effect will be, largely because most new drugs are variations on existing medications. But, this focus on a primary effect can lead us to discount the other effects on the body. It’s as if simply labeling an effect as a ‘side effect’ trivializes it in our minds.

What we must keep in mind is that by introducing these compounds into our bodies, we open ourselves up to the potential to experience any and all of the various effects. The doctor may give it to us to treat a specific ailment, but the reality is we’re susceptible to the entire array of effects.

Granted, these other ‘side’ effects may not happen as frequently as the ‘primary’ effect, but are drug makers still failing to give them proper attention as they weigh the benefit-to-risk simply because of how they may negatively impact marketing?

Creating a Drug Market

Let’s look at a couple of examples to see how marketing ultimately determines which is the ‘primary’ effect of a drug. We will begin with a brand so familiar it has almost become a generic term for analgesics.

In the late 1800s, an inexperienced pharmacist mistakenly sent acetanilide instead of naphthalene to a couple of French doctors who were experimenting with treatments for intestinal parasites. By chance, the doctors soon discovered the new compound reduced fever in some patients and later realized it offered some level of pain relief.

While unexpected, the ‘side’ effects were marketable. That’s why nearly 150 years later acetanilide, which metabolizes in the body to become acetaminophen, is still marketed under the brand name Tylenol, and has become synonymous with its ‘primary’ effects of pain relief and fever reduction, rather than its effect on parasite motility.

What about the other effects – the less marketable ones? Liver damage would probably fall into that category, And, despite the long history, researchers didn’t really start looking into the impact of acetaminophen toxicity on livers in both adults and children until this millennium. It makes one wonder how many people suffered severe liver damage before it caught researchers’ attention.

To some extent, the failure to notice the negative effects can be chalked up to human nature. As we look for the hook to hang our hat, we aren’t likely to notice the corner of the dresser until our little toe ultimately discovers it at a most inopportune time.

One Effect Stands Out

Drug makers aren’t completely oblivious to ‘side’ effects as they develop a new drug. In fact, they become acutely aware of secondary effects when they provide the potential for more profits.

It is a well-known story that the makers of one new drug being developed for high blood pressure and angina discovered that the drug also effectively induced erections in many of their male patients. Once they stripped away the labels of primary effect versus side effects, it probably didn’t take Pfizer’s MBAs long to recognize Viagra’s potential.

Rather than join the crowded, competitive field of blood pressure drugs, they had the opportunity to essentially create a new market catering to those suffering from impotence.

Of course, erectile dysfunction sounds much more like something that needs to be treated so they put their ad budget toward branding the ‘ailment’ as much as the new drug and it paid off in spades. Viagra managed to stay in the range of $2 billion in each year of its patent protection.

Don’t Take Your Eye Off the Ball

The drug and medical industries, which are so clearly on top of the ball when it comes to drug outcomes and profitability, have an abysmal record when it comes to drug outcomes and actual patient experience. It is precisely this focus on profits that clouds their vision, and turns side effects into new symptoms.

This is problematic with any drug, but none more so than with birth control because the patient is typically young and healthy. Plus, I can think of no other drug that is designed to be given to a healthy patient with the intent of stopping a natural process.

Given the disease-free state of so many patients who begin birth control, you would think this is one drug where it would be easy to identify an iatrogenic effect when side effects begin to arise. However, this is rarely the case, and the story of a young woman who recently contacted me provides a perfect example.

A Pattern of Side Effects

After seven years of taking birth control pills, Alexa changed over to the Mirena IUD. She began to notice facial hair growing and mentioned it to her doctor. He ran some tests and discovered her DHEA-S levels were high. A subsequent ultrasound revealed the classic string of pearls on her ovarian tissue, and she was diagnosed with PCOS.

When she questioned her birth control, the doctor insisted that she NEEDED to be on birth control or she would likely end up with endometrial cancer. She felt almost like he was using cancer to threaten her into continuing with birth control. He began to discuss other medicines she would also need to treat her condition.

But, she knew that her ovaries had been fine before starting on Mirena, and just couldn’t accept what the doctor was telling her. She searched online and found the patient information pamphlet for her IUD and learned that the documented side effects include “cysts on ovaries” and “facial hair.”

Alexa opted to take supplements to help balance her hormones and began charting her cycle after removing the IUD. Her cycle normalized quickly, her mood stabilized, and her energy rebounded.

It was the first time she began to realize how much the synthetic hormones had dragged her down over the years. She began to take inventory of all the “symptoms” that she encountered after starting birth control that might have actually been “side effects.”

Not only had the doctor recently missed that the two symptoms (facial hair, ovarian cysts) he used to diagnose PCOS were clearly listed as side effects of the contraceptive device he inserted, but she began to question previous interactions.

The IUD contributed to multiple vaginal infections, which in turn, led to several antibiotic prescriptions, but her doctor never acknowledged that the IUD could have played a role, even though these types of infections had never been a problem prior to the IUD.

She could see a pattern developing.

Then, she remembered when she first started taking The Pill at age 15. She experienced her first bouts of depression, which triggered new scripts for Paxil and then Lexapro.

Depression and anxiety represent some of the most common side effects of hormonal birth control. Yet, they are treated as mere symptoms of a new, unrelated disease by a vast majority of doctors.

A Cascade of Symptoms

I wonder how many young women have lived a similar experience? They unwittingly trade in their health for a cascade of symptoms.

When you hear a story like Alexa’s, you begin to understand why 131 million people in the US take at least one prescription drug, with the average being 4 prescriptions. We lead the world, spending $1,376 annually per capita on these drugs, nearly 50% more than our nearest competitor, Germany.

I don’t mean to insinuate that these new symptoms aren’t in fact new diseases. The subsequent effects of birth control often manifest as long-term, even chronic, new diseases. It isn’t uncommon for synthetic hormones to trigger an autoimmune disease, nor is it uncommon for depression to linger long after a woman stops taking birth control.

These long-term consequences are precisely why the next time your doctor casually hands you a prescription and you feel compelled to bite your lip and not ask the questions bouncing around in your head, ponder the phrase “iatrogenic illness” and don’t be afraid to start questioning the doctor.

After all, you will be the one living (or dying) with the consequences.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was originally published on September 26, 2022.

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Thinking About Side Effects

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thinking about side effects

I have been thinking a lot about how we characterize the side effects of drugs. Truth be told, that is a topic that I have pondered on a number of occasions since beginning this website. More often than not, we have no idea about the true breadth and depth of these reactions. We think we do, because assuming some semblance of understanding, even an incomplete one, is what allows us to operate in this space, but when we unpeel the layers of that supposed understanding, it is difficult not to be impressed by how little we actually know.

The manufacturers of these products are required to report adverse reactions and side effects before a drug reaches the market and surveil reactions in the broader population after it reaches the market. From here, regulatory agencies, physicians, researchers, and consumers are expected to trust that we know how these drugs do or do not work. Importantly, we are encouraged by this understanding that any negative reactions experienced will be rare, time-limited, and easily mitigated by other medical products. The possibility that there might be side effects not identified by the original research, that ‘rareness’ is relative, and that ill-effects may not be time-limited or easily corrected is difficult to digest. It throws a wrench in the very foundation of the heavily fortified trust in all things modern medicine.

In reality, it is very difficult to ascertain the scope and depth of potential side effects. This is due in part to the complexity of the interactions between the drug, the human, and the totality of his/her environmental exposures and stressors and in part to the economic underpinnings of these endeavors. If one had to include a broader array of variables in a drug trial, no drug would ever be approved, at least not in a timely or cost-efficient manner. Instead, the initial trials utilize the most healthy of participants, perhaps excluding the disease process in question, and all other variables are excluded, both from the subject pool itself and analytically. Who wants to trial a drug on individuals typical of those who would be taking the drug; on individuals with multiple, often chronic comorbidities, for whom both chronic and acute polypharmacy are the norm and not the exception? No one. That would unfavorably skew the data. Better to have a clean subject pool and limit a priori what might be considered an adverse reaction to those that fall within the typically narrow anaphylactic framework and those that are directly related to the purported mechanisms of action of the drug itself. Addressing potential off-target effects must be eliminated or minimized; ditto for potential interactions between the drug and the unique characteristics of the individual. A clean sample and favorable data are the goal.

To that end, adverse reactions research, analyses, and reporting become a ‘see no evil’ approach. If we do not acknowledge the possibility that these reactions exist, then for all intents and purposes, they do not. This means that only the most severe and ‘on-target’ or anaphylactic reactions may be recognized. Any off-target reactions or side effects are labeled as rare and attributed to extraneous variables, unrelated to the drug but entirely related to some inherent weakness of the human who takes the drug.

If confronted with the prospect of negative reactions or even simply negative data e.g. the drug does not work, it is incumbent upon those involved to utilize analytical tools that highlight the good and hide the bad. Data or participant responses that do not fit the desired narrative must be cleaned or removed, post hoc. When that does not work, it is common to select complex statistical methods that no one but the statisticians themselves understand to obfuscate negative findings. Inasmuch as few physicians and even fewer consumers understand even the most basic statistics, this all but eliminates any questions regarding the veracity of the findings. What is written in the abstract or summary is all that will matter. The lede is buried in the stats so that everyone involved might trust in the medication’s safety, trust in their own knowledge, and move comfortably along with their lives.

I admit, this is a cynical perspective, but it is hard-won. After a decade of publishing HM, researching the analytical methodologies employed by drug companies, of investigating the mechanisms of action of many popular and presumed safe drugs, it is difficult not to be jaded. So flimsy are the safety and efficacy data that one is hard-pressed not to question everything. And so here I am amidst a global pandemic for which multiple products have been rushed to market. Pressure to use these products is intense and I and others are left with the sinking feeling that we do not yet know what we think we know about these products or even what we do not know. What we do know is that the developers and manufacturers of these products have a long and well-established history of shady research practices, of burying negative data, of vilifying anyone who questions these practices, and of financing unquestioning support from politicians, ‘thought leaders’, media, and generally, anyone who might be of use. It is not difficult to recognize those same practices at play here but the desire to be safe quells those concerns for most. We’ll take anything and do anything to end this mess, except perhaps ask why we are here in the first place.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter. 

Image credit: PalmaHutabarat

This article was published originally on November 4, 2021. 

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Look Beyond Blood Pressure and Weight

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Chandler Marrs

There was a time when I thought I knew what it meant to be healthy. I was younger then and much thinner too. I swam five hours per day, 5 days per week, lifted weights three times per week and competed on weekends. I loved training, especially the long, grueling, descending interval sets when I could lock into a rhythm and just go, racing the guys in the lanes next to me.

At times I ate really well, but mostly, my diet was crap, filled with diet coke and fast food typical of my generation. I was on birth control pills (high dose, back then), allergy pills (the ones recalled for the risk of heart attack), topped with regular doses of ibuprofen to compensate for training pain and monthly menstrual hell. But I looked good and could compete with the best of them so I thought I was healthy.

Though I knew it wasn’t normal for a teenager or an early 20 something to have high blood pressure and pass out periodically, I neither considered those symptoms as signs of ill-health nor as side-effects of the medications and dietary choices I had made. I had, and still have, a resting heart rate in low the 50 beats per minute – how could someone with such good cardiovascular training be unhealthy? How could someone who was slim and muscular be unhealthy? The blood pressure, the black outs must be a fluke, I reasoned. And the monthly menstrual pain, well, that was normal right? All women writhe on the bathroom floor once a month.

It was years before I began connecting the dots between my symptoms, my diet and the meds. It took even longer for me to question my definitions of health. What does it mean to be healthy? Is it about weight? Many of us tell ourselves that health is all about weight, especially women. I am guilty of this even now. Does weight really correspond to health? Is health something that simple? Certainly, at the extreme ends of weight, there are significant, linear correlations between health and weight, but for the rest of us who fall somewhere in the middle it is not that clear cut.

We know now that body mass index or BMI, the shorthand calculation that most physicians use to determine obesity and by association ill-health, falls short for most athletes, many women, and is especially problematic for older women and men because it doesn’t consider muscle mass. Neither does it consider fitness level nor cardiovascular health, the primary driver for most weight loss campaigns. If weight is not correlated with these other measures of health, one has to wonder if weight is sufficiently sensitive to gauge human health. Perhaps, it is not.

Using myself as an example, I have learned over the years that my blood pressure is sensitive to many medications and toxicants. I cannot take oral contraceptives or I suspect synthetic hormones of any sort. Micronized progesterone landed me in the hospital. Pregnancy also increased my blood pressure exponentially, though it is likely that this was exacerbated by the tocolytics given to slow my contractions and my diet which was low salt but high carbs (sugars).

I cannot take cold medicines (pseudo-ephedrine). Vaccines too spike my blood pressure. Heck, if I am not careful with my coffee intake (I would be better off quitting altogether), that too spikes my blood pressure. As a result, I rarely if ever take any medications now but this was not so for the first 40 some odd years of my life. To say this was a long process, would be an understatement. I, like most of us, tell myself lies about my healthiness. I have always considered myself healthy, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Now, I know better.

Was my weight ever correlated with my blood pressure? Perhaps, sometimes, but even though my weight has fluctuated dramatically over the last decades, if I dig a little deeper, I can always find another more plausible reason for the increased blood pressure; generally an illness, in itself a stressor, but often one requiring a medication known to increase blood pressure. What is so sad about this realization is that no physician ever made these connections (not even between the oral contraceptives and blood pressure), preferring instead to treat my blood pressure as an entirely discrete entity and with medications that invariably lowered my blood pressure, but also tanked my heart rate into the 30s-40s, something I knew was not safe. And the blood pressure medications working by different mechanisms that didn’t lower my heart rate, well, they had far too many serious side effects. To consider taking any of those meds for the rest of my life was out of the question, at least to me. The cardiologists, on the other hand, had no problem piling on medication after medication.

So when we go back the question of health markers, are weight and blood pressure sufficiently sensitive to detect ill-health? The answer is yes and no. While weight is sometimes associated with high blood pressure, I would suspect both weight and blood pressure are markers of other illnesses or medication reactions. Remove or reduce the burden of those illnesses and blood pressure as well as other indices of heart disease and inflammatory disease processes may diminish as well.

How do we do this? Well, diet and lifestyle contribute immensely. For me, diet has been huge. Using myself as an example again, when I was younger, I was slim and athletic, but had very high blood pressure. My diet was crap back then and I used medications known to exacerbate blood pressure. I am now much heavier (almost obese by BMI standards), still very athletic (currently, CrossFit 4-5 times per week; previously water polo, running, spin) and through diet (non-processed, no sodas, no gluten, only organic vegetables, fruits and proteins) and nutrient supplements, I have maintained ‘normal’ blood pressure, perhaps for the first time in my life. Sure, I’d like to lose 40 pounds or so and maybe at some point my body will begin releasing those fat stores, but it really doesn’t matter. I am healthy and completely medication free, not even ibuprofen for training pain.

Long story short, when we think about health, what it is and what it isn’t, addressing medications, diet and lifestyle (exercise) variables are critical. I always had the exercise component in my favor, but diet and medication use has been problematic. I have recently come to understand, that if we have symptoms ‘requiring’ medications, then we are not healthy, no matter what we tell ourselves and how good we look in those tight or not so tight jeans. In fact, those meds are probably masking and/or exacerbating the real causes of ill-health. Instead of piling on more and more medications, begin disentangling the root of your symptoms, address dietary problems, nutrient insufficiencies and lifestyle variables. I suspect for many of us, with a bit of detective work combined with some lifestyle adjustments, health is within reach. It just may not look like what we have been conditioned to believe it should.

This post was published originally on March 11, 2015. 

Postscript: in the three years since writing this post,  I still maintain a healthy diet and blood pressure, save except for my bout with turmeric induced hypertension (even ‘healthy’ supplements can have some interesting effects on BP). I still workout regularly, though now my sport is powerlifting, where I hold several world records in the old lady divisions. And I weigh more now than I ever have in my life, except during the last week of a pre-eclamptic twin pregnancy where I exploded with water weight. The muscle mass I have gained has moved me ever closer to the BMI obese category. Despite what the scale says, however, I am skinnier than I have been long time and I am certainly fitter and stronger. At 50, I am healthier than I was in my 20s. Diet and lifestyle are critical to health. BMI is not. 

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My Brain after Long Term Lexapro: Chemically Induced TBI

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Cerebral cortex after long term Lexapro

In December 2015, I was given Lexapro. I had taken Lexapro previously for 12 years, but because of abnormal blood chemistry and building side effects, my doctor suggested that I cease taking the medication. After five months without the drug, I was improving slightly, but because of life events, my doctor and I decided to begin taking Lexapro again. During the reinstatement of the drug, I immediately began to experience serious neurological reactions that I have come to describe as a brain kindling of sorts. It felt like my head was on fire chemically and electrically. Some of the symptoms that developed included: fatigue, confusion, eye pain, leg weakness, headaches, visual processing disturbances, coordination difficulties, lack of concentration, and short-term memory problems.

Within a few weeks of taking the medication, these symptoms were worsening but my physician was not concerned. In fact, he suggested what I was experiencing was normal and that I continue taking the medication. I did, for a while, until the side effects were so bad that I decided to stop. I published my story on Hormones Matter a year ago. You can read it here: A Kindled Brain: Long Term Lexapro Use Reactions. A year and dozens of doctors later, I have become completely disabled. This is a follow up to my story, told with much help from the editor of Hormones Matter.

Two Years Post Lexapro Damage

I no longer take Lexapro or other medications but the damage was done. I still cannot work, watch TV, read, drive or walk more than a few feet. I have had what seems like a two year long headache and severe vision processing issues. It is going to be another great Christmas at my house.

Though I received diagnoses of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Fibromyalgia they really were just symptoms of something bigger. Shortly after the  CFS diagnosis, an MRI revealed white matter lesions and demyelination. The neurologist dismissed a Lexapro connection. Research suggests otherwise. In the summer of 2017, I was finally given a provisional diagnosis of Lexapro induced neurotoxicity. Just recently, the extent of the brain damage was shown on both on a quantitative electroencephalograph (QEEG) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) brain scans. Both neurotoxicity and brain injuries were identified by both tests and later confirmed again by additional physicians who reviewed the results independently.

QEEG Results

The QEEG is an EEG with a visual mapping component. It measures the electrical activity or signal transduction between electrodes placed in specific locations on the brain. My test results showed that in certain areas of the brain there was very little organized electrical activity and other areas where there was unusual amount of high activity. What that means is that in some areas of my brain, the signals are very low and essentially not sufficiently strong for the activities that need to be performed but in other areas of my brain, there was way too much electrical activity. Specifically, the report said:

“The patient was found to have a significant amount of low frequency (8-9 Hz) in the right posterior temporal (T6) area. There is an extreme amount of low beta (12-15 Hz) predominantly in the prefrontal and frontal areas that may interfere with executive functioning, organizing, decision making and may also account for fatigue. There is a very unusual amount of high activity for all measured frequencies (1-50 Hz) in the right posterior (O2) area, specifically in the right inferior occipital gyrus (Broadman areas 17, 18, and 19). This may result in sub-optimal functioning in visual processing of color, form, movement, visual perception and spatial processing…

…The analysis of amplitude asymmetries were found to be abnormal for low frequencies (1-12 Hz) stemming from right posterior temporal (T6) area. Also, there are abnormalities for high beta (18-30 Hz) stemming from primarily the right posterior area (02). Both findings are substantiated by LORETA analysis and resembles TBI or other brain damage…

…The TBI index indicated that there was an 85% probability that the patient’s brain is functioning as if there is a TBI 0.95 on a scale of 0-10.”

This was the first confirmation of the cognitive dysfunction that I have been living with for the last few years. Doctor after doctor told me that my symptoms were not real and somehow made up (and some still do, as the QEEG is used mainly in research circles and not always accepted in conventional medicine). The QEEG clearly showed the abnormal electrical activity underlying my symptoms. Next up, the SPECT scan, a test I had to fight for, because again, no one seems to believe that a drug like Lexapro could cause such damage.

SPECT Scans

SPECT imaging shows brain activity (blood flow, which represents local brain metabolism and energy use). The technology uses radiolabeled isotopes that are then reconstructed with algorithms to display in color 3-D images of brain activity. The images below are some of my brain scans. Regions displayed in blue represent a state of very low activity called hypoperfusion and those in red represent hyperperfusion – excessive activity.

SPECT scale
Figure 1. SPECT color coding scale.

 

CF spect scans
Figure 2. Brain activity after long term Lexapro use.

From my images, you can see several areas of both abnormally low and abnormally high activity with very little normal brain function anywhere. From the report:

  • At rest, the overall cortical activity was reduced in a diffuse, decreased, patchy pattern.
  • Focal areas of abnormal cortical hypoperfusion were noted in the bilateral anterior frontal (L>R), left posterolateral frontal, left orbitofrontal, right dorsolateral prefrontal, bilateral anterior and medial temporal (L>R), bilateral superior parietal and bilateral occipital areas.
  • Focal areas of abnormal subcortical hypoperfusion were noted in the anterior aspect of the pontine portion of the brainstem, bilateral caudate and right lentiform areas.
  • Focal areas of abnormally increased cortical perfusion were not noted.
  • Focal areas of abnormally increased subcortical perfusion were noted in the bilateral thalamic and left lentiform areas.

The doctors conclude:

“The nature (diffuse, patchy), location (cortical and subcortical), and pattern (involving all lobes of the brain) of these abnormalities is primarily consistent with the scientific [literature] pertaining to a toxic/hypoxic/neuroinflammatory process and the patient’s clinical history, as obtained, of a medication reaction which was received after the blind review. These results agree in large part with outside EEG data showing hypofrontality and NM report showing left frontal abnormality, likely not to be artefactual.”

What This Means

My brain is a mess. According to the Hormones Matter editor, the areas of low activity in the various regions of the prefrontal cortex would explain my difficulties executive function, things like planning, decision-making and lack of concentration, while the reduced activity in the temporal and occipital lobes would explain my memory and vision difficulties, respectively. The reduced brainstem activity would connect to my walking and balance difficulties, but also, poor to autonomic regulation (the autonomic nervous system controls all automatic bodily functions including things like breathing, heart rate, temperature control, digestion, sleep/wake cycles, etc.). The areas of my brain on hyperdrive may reflect compensatory reactions, last ditch efforts to kick start some of the underactive regions. The thalamus (plural thalami), in particular, acts as a relay station between the brainstem and the rest of the brain for motor, sensory signals and ‘emotional’ signals via its connections to the limbic system. Mine seem to be screaming ‘wake up’ to the rest of the brain.

Please be careful using these medications, particularly psych meds and especially when prescribed for minor issues like a fear of flying or work-related stage fright. If I knew then what I know now, I would have never taken Lexapro.

*TBI: traumatic brain injury

Update: Neurocognitive Testing

In October 2017, I had a battery of neurocognitive assessments. The results have only recently become available (March 2018). According to the report, the decrements in cognitive ability were consistent with the QEEG and SPECT results indicating probable neurotoxicity with brain damage. Some of the findings included:

  1. An approximately 9 point drop in IQ from premorbid (pre-medication reaction) levels.
  2. Impairment of perceptual reasoning, working memory, processing speed, and full scale IQ (FSIQ), which is now at the 7th percentile.
  3. Significant declines memory function including auditory memory, visual memory, visual working memory and immediate memory (2nd percentile).
  4. Significant decline in manual dexterity with performance below the 1st percentile.
  5. Severe decline in executive functioning.

According to the doctor’s assessment:

“The neuropsychological testing indicates disability from gainful employment for the foreseeable future. The results of this work is a diagnosis of Toxic Encephalopathy (ICD 10 G92); DSM-5 Substance/Medication Induced Major Neurocognitive Disorder (ICD F13.97).”

He also indicates that

“…the abnormal neuropsychological findings consistent with neurotoxicity; personality testing consistent with neurotoxicity; abnormal advanced brain imaging and QEEG findings; and no other reasonable explanation for the claimant’s illness and resulting disability, in my opinion, Lexapro and associated drug interactions caused this neuropsychological decline.”

Again, I cannot stress strongly enough how dangerous these drugs are. Please consider my story before taking these medications.

Postscript: In 2020, I had an evaluation by an independent forensic medical examiner. She concluded:

Within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, it is my opinion that the decline in your health has been caused by the combination of DNA variants for several CYP450 genes, with reduced metabolic capacity together with prescription psychoactive medication which caused drug-gene, drug-drug and drug-drug-gene interactions leading to severe toxicity and consequently brain damage.

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The Epidemic of Silence with Adverse Drug Reactions

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epidemic of silence

One of the more bothersome feedback loops that keeps adverse drug reactions from being recognized is that patients stay silent about their pain and suffering, and therefore their pain and suffering is not recognized or appreciated, and everyone gets to continue to think that dangerous drugs are safe and that adverse reactions are rare. Seeing is believing and neither doctors nor other patients see the ill effects of drugs, in part because we aren’t screaming.

Of course, there are some patients who are screaming at the top of their lungs about the pain and suffering caused by the drug that hurt them – Gardasil, Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics, Lupron, Humira, to name but a few, and are systematically disregarded. Patient disregard, a problem that has bothersome consequences and feedback loops as well, but a topic for another post. This post is about the silence that surrounds adverse drug reactions and how that silence is keeping the problems caused by these drugs from being addressed.  It is also about recognizing the rational for suffering in silence, to express my empathy, and to encourage those who are silent to use their voice to help heal themselves and help others.

Silence and Self-Preservation

Silence afflicts the ill for a variety of reasons. There is a lot of shame associated with getting sick. Those who are sick, sadly, often feel that they are less capable, less worthy, less appreciated and less loved as a result of their sickness. To the best of their ability, they hide that they feel unwell, out of fear that they will not be seen as capable of doing their job, of caring for their family, of functioning, either physically or mentally as they did before becoming ill. Silence serves as a form of self-preservation; a blanket of fear that keeps the rejection at bay.

An Element of Guilt

Those who are hurt by a drug or vaccine often feel responsible for the role that they played in taking the medication that hurt them. Some feel guilty for insisting on the prescription from their doctor, or administering the drugs to their child, or self-medicating, and they hide in shame and remain silent.

Mental Health

A lot of the adverse effects of pharmaceuticals are central nervous system related, meaning that many areas of mental health are effected. People are notoriously ashamed and silent about mental health issues. It is easier to deal with anxiety, memory loss, depression, panic, and other symptoms, alone, in silence, than it is to speak up about what happened. After all, if you speak out about experiencing mental health issues, you run the risk of being labeled as crazy.

Additionally, many adverse drug reactions take a toll on every system in the body and therefore it is difficult to describe what is going wrong. How does one explain, to anyone, that EVERYTHING is going wrong? It’s too difficult and sick patients sound and feel crazy, so they stay silent.

Reverence and Respect

Questions are typically asked of the experts, the doctors who prescribed the drugs, the people whose job it is to heal or fix those who are suffering from health problems. Sadly and commonly, when a patient asks her doctor if a medication caused serious side-effects and the doctor denies the possibility that the prescription drug could cause such pain, patients assume that the doctor is right. They might also assume, as a patient asking for help, they are not entitled to question their doctor’s expertise. After all, the doctor went to school for a long time and knows what he or she is talking about… right? So patients assume that they are wrong, their doctor is right, and they remain silent.

Demonizing the Injured Patient

One does not have to look far to see a person who is criticized for telling their story of pain caused by a pharmaceutical. Those who tell their stories of pain and suffering, especially those who tell their story loudly, are often demonized as being anti-medicine or anti-vaccine. They are sometimes accused of being conspiracy theorists, or responsible for the death of those who die from preventable diseases. It is easier to be silent about pain than to be accused of being an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, so those who are hurt, but who don’t want to be labeled and demonized, stay silent.

When Doctors Suffer

Those in the medical field are not exempt from adverse drug reactions. Though some doctors, nurses, and pharmacists stay away from drugs on principle, many of them prescribe themselves the same drugs that they prescribe their patients. Sometimes they have an adverse reaction to those drugs. The emotional hardship that I presume these medical professionals experience when they are hurt by a prescription drug may be enough to keep them silent. Silence seems easier than questioning one’s entire world view and profession.

End the Epidemic of Silence – Speak Up

There are many other plausible, personal reasons why people stay silent about the horrifying reactions that they have to prescription drugs. All of them feed into the real risks of these drugs being under-recognized. The silence is, sadly, as much of an epidemic as the pain.

Silence, though understandable, is a problem. How will anyone recognize the problems that exist, if those who know about them, who have personal expertise in the unfortunate area of adverse drug reactions, don’t tell their stories? Doctors, the FDA, the pharmaceutical manufacturers and others involved in the medical field will continue to think that disabling and severe adverse reactions are rare, or that something else “must” be the cause of a patient’s pain, until they hear similar these stories over and over again.

It is only when the voices of the victims are louder than the pharmaceutical advertisements and sales reps that the real dangers of these drugs will be realized. I encourage everyone who has experienced an adverse reaction to a drug to share their story. Post it here on Hormones Matter.  Post it on your personal blog or Facebook page. Shout it from the rooftops. The stories of the pain caused by adverse drug reactions are important. They matter. Your health matters and the health of those who hear your story and heed your warning, matters.

Even if concerned citizens and victims can’t stop the travesty of the pharmaceutical industry being the 4th leading cause of death of Americans, we can stop the travesty of the silence that surrounds the situation. I know that it’s difficult and that in a lot of ways silence is easier, but I would like to encourage you to please, please tell your story – because it matters.

Information about Fluoroquinolone Toxicity

Information about the author, and adverse reactions to fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro/ciprofloxacin, Levaquin/levofloxacin, Avelox/moxifloxacin and Floxin/ofloxacin) can be found on Lisa Bloomquist’s site, www.floxiehope.com.

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Image by Alexa from Pixabay.

This article was published originally on Hormones Matter in October 2013.

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Lucine Research Featured in International Innovation

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Data decisions discovery

Lucine Health Sciences, the parent company of Hormones MatterTM and Heal with FriendsTM, was featured in a recent piece on women’s health, in International Innovation. Entitled Data, Decisions and Discovery, the article is a first in a series of articles that will highlight our unique approach to research. From the article:

Medical science was, and still is to some degree, predicated upon physicians and researchers having a controlling view of patient health. Among scientists, there is a tendency to favour pristine and highly controlled experiments that address just one variable at a time. Yet while this may result in neat, publishable studies, it fails to take into account the complexities of life and human physiology. “When you isolate one variable at a time, you may obtain some interesting insights into the operation of that variable – but this does not address the complexity of  the systems in human health and disease,” Marrs elucidates. “Science will only move forwards if we successfully capture the messiness of multiple variables and understand how they interact with each other within the context of health and disease.”

For modern research to be effective, it must take into account the patient’s knowledge about his or her health and move beyond the paradigm that equates health with simple linear equations. By putting the patient at the centre of the research equation and considering multiple variables, Lucine Health Sciences is well-placed to explore the efficacy of medications, as well as their potential side effects.

To read the full article: Data, Decisions and Discovery.

About Lucine Health Sciences

Lucine Health Sciences is a social-benefit company committed to improving healthcare by providing critical and credible health information to consumers, physicians and industry. We leverage the broad social media reach generated by Hormones MatterTM to conduct large-scale and much needed research in the field of women’s health. Studies address the side effects associated with common medications, vaccines and surgical procedures used in women’s healthcare. Contract research services are available.

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Side Effects and Unintended Consequences of Popular Pharmaceuticals

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Lisa Bloomquist

After experiencing an adverse reaction to a popular antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, that involved destruction of my tendons, muscles, and cartilage, as well as my central, peripheral and autonomic nervous systems, I was left with questions that no one seemed to be able to answer – What did ciprofloxacin do to my body?  What happened that made it feel as if a bomb had gone off in me?  Why was I fine after taking ciprofloxacin once, but was far from fine after taking it a second time?  Why can some people tolerate ciprofloxacin and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics with no ill effects, but others can’t and are destroyed by a single prescription?  And the most important question of all – How could I put my body and mind back together again?

I scoured research journals for answers to these questions. The answers that I found were daunting.  I found that ciprofloxacin and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics are topoisomerase interrupters – meaning that they disrupt the enzymatic process of bacterial DNA replication (and mitochondrial DNA replication).  I found that fluoroquinolones deplete intracellular magnesium.  Depletion of intracellular magnesium has multiple health consequences including disruption of more than 300 enzymatic processes.  I realized that both enzyme depletion and magnesium depletion lead to mitochondrial dysfunction.  I found that mitochondrial dysfunction leads to high levels of oxidative stress and that oxidative stress wreaks havoc on multiple areas of health.  I discovered that the carboxylic acid molecule in fluoroquinolones can be metabolized into poisonous metabolites in the liver. I learned how feedback loops between multiple biological systems work together and those compensatory feedback loops make repairing damage difficult.

The more I learned about the complex interactions occurring in my body, the more I realized that the number of unknown factors is far greater than the number of known factors. I realized that, as much as I wanted easy answers and quick solutions, there were none available. Because of the complexity of the human body, as well as individual differences in both genetics and environment, I doubt that easy answers will ever be available. Any one of the many complex systems within the human body can be studied for a lifetime without knowing everything about it. The multiple systems within our bodies are interconnected, difficult to comprehend, poorly understood and truly amazing. Human life is astoundingly, beautifully, mind-bogglingly complex.

Mind Blowing Complexity 

This chart of metabolic pathways shows just one level of biochemical complexity in the human body. Click and take a look. Amazing, isn’t it?  I find the pathways to be both incredibly daunting and beautiful at the same time. As complex as that chart is, it doesn’t include everything. There are additional layers on top of it – genetics, epigenetics, equally complex charts about the microbiome, endocrine system, bioenergetics, etc.

Even though the metabolic pathways in the chart above are known (if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be in the chart), I suspect that the interactions between the metabolic pathways, and the connections between them and other complex systems, are not adequately considered in healthcare. How could they be? These pathways are so mind-blowingly complex, and so interconnected with layer upon layer of feedback and feedforward loops amplifying any disruption and miscalculation, that if we were to properly consider the ramifications of pharmaceutical alterations, no one would dare take most medications. We would recognize the limits of our abilities to predict and treat the inevitable unintended consequences of disturbing the balance within and among these systems. Since pharmaceuticals are a trillion dollar industry, it is safe to say that all of the potential effects of pharmaceuticals on these pathways are not fully considered.

Pharmaceuticals Disrupt Biochemical Pathways

Every pharmaceutical has an effect on those pathways. When the drug interacts with the metabolic pathways as expected, all parties involved are pleased. When the drug interacts in unexpected or unwanted ways, we say that there are “side-effects.” I wonder though, are there really side-effects, or is that just a more palatable expression about the limits of our understanding (and attention)? One could argue that if we paid more attention to the broader biological systems involved in human health, those “side-effects” would be entirely predictable. But we don’t. Instead we focus our medication efforts on narrowly defined targets, destroying a particular pathogen or amplifying or diminishing a specific cell cycle function, all the while ignoring that those processes are conserved systemically. Perturbations in one organism or one function, necessarily affects the entire system. Nothing happens in isolation.

If we were to consider the potential for drugs to initiate systemic reactions, and if the effects of drugs on metabolic pathways were properly regarded, fluoroquinolones and many other drugs and vaccines would not be on the market. But we don’t. Instead, we choose to believe that side-effects are rare and won’t happen to us. Those beliefs are bolstered by decades of marketing to physicians and patients, promoting the safety and efficacy of each drug, often long after science and the legal system have disputed those claims.

Fluoroquinolones, the drugs I know most about, deplete intracellular magnesium (note how many times you see Mg in the chart) and disrupt vital enzymatic processes (which are kind of important). Can you even imagine there not being unintended consequences to depleting vital minerals from a system that is as complex and interconnected as cellular biochemistry and metabolic pathways that determine human health?  I cannot imagine it, because after learning about how fluoroquinolones react in the body, I know too much to believe the marketing propaganda about any drug. Before my adverse reaction, however, I never gave the safety of antibiotics a second thought. It appears neither did my doctor, nor the millions of other physicians who have made the fluoroquinolone class of antibiotics the most prescribed and profitable antibiotics ever.

I know that there are some very smart scientists out there; people who are far more intelligent than I, who have a much better grasp of biochemistry – so why aren’t the dangers of fluoroquinolones more well-known? Why aren’t the side-effects entirely predictable? Why did I have to figure out all of this on my own, without help from the physician who prescribed the medication or the physicians I saw post reaction? Sadly, I have come to believe that most physicians and patients alike don’t want to recognize the complexity of human health; preferring instead to believe in our own intellectual supremacy. And as much as I appreciate the scientists who are doing the work on which I have based my assertions, I don’t think that there is anyone who understands the complex biochemical feedback loops sufficiently to guarantee that there won’t be unintended consequences when disrupting part of the system with a pharmaceutical.

Unintended Consequences

How can one avoid the unintended consequences that come with disruption of the biochemical interactions described in this chart?  Individualized medicine that takes into consideration genetic predispositions is one place to start, but it requires that we recognize the complexity of interacting systems and abandon our silver bullet approach to medicine. From where I sit, this is a long way off. Individualized medicine based on genetic predispositions barely exists. If we consider the complexity of a lifetime of environmental exposures, predicting how a particular drug will react in given individual is complex, if not impossible. For me, the most feasible way to avoid unintended disruptions and feedback loops is to avoiding pharmaceuticals (or at least use them very sparingly). Each medication has side-effects and unintended consequences. All drugs disrupt the very biochemical feedback loops necessary for keeping us healthy.

Avoid the Cause in Order to Avoid the Effect

Perhaps, I am the medical equivalent of a Luddite. Perhaps, I over-emphasize the harm done by pharmaceuticals and underestimate the good done by them because I was hurt by a drug. I see the unintended consequences of disrupting the delicate balance of biochemical pathways everywhere. All of the diseases of modernity can be traced to a disruption on the chart above (or maybe a disruption on the endocrine system chart, or the microbiome chart, or the epigenetics chart). People are sick; not cells in a petri dish – people. They are sick and they are suffering because of disruptions in their biochemistry.

These systems are complex. The feedback loops between systems amplify the complexity and make mistakes and miscalculations difficult (impossible) to correct.

Disruptions in our biochemistry result in disease.

We live in a world of unintended consequences. Does anyone else see it?

Information about Fluoroquinolone Toxicity

Information about the author, and adverse reactions to fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro/ciprofloxacin, Levaquin/levofloxacin, Avelox/moxifloxacin and Floxin/ofloxacin) can be found on Lisa Bloomquist’s site, www.floxiehope.com.

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