heart conditons and quinolone anitbiotics part 1

Hi there,
I was wondering if other members on this forum are aware of the danger of antibiotics and their effect on heart patients. In particular all the antibiotics in the quinolone group.
Here is a website with the pertinent info.
http://fqvictims.org/
gotta grab a bite to eat and since I had a personal experience with this , I will post part 2.
Elke

6 Comments

quinolones -eg Cipro or Norflox

by busby - 2008-04-11 10:04:12

Hi Elke,
As well as a PM patient, I am also a microbiologist so I want to comment on this one. The main adverse effects of quinolones are photosensitivity (sensitive to bright light) and central nervous system effects in the elderly. However these drugs are expensive (in Australia anyway) and are reserved only for treatment of infections resistant to cheaper antibiotic. I remember in the days of the anthrax scare seeing some young movie star holding up her supply of Cipro and all I could think of was you stupid girl. There are so many many drugs that can cause problems with heart patients and the other drugs they need to take, so I guess we just have to accept some things if it is absolutely necessary.
Karen, unless you have a congenital heart defect, previous endocarditis, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, rheumatic fever or mitral valve prolapse you should not need to take antibiotics for dental work. My dentist wanted me to take antibiotics and I had to get permission from my cardiologist that it was not needed. I would be very surprised if your dentist prescribed Cipro for your treatment.
Hope this helps.
Robin

Antibotics

by SMITTY - 2008-04-11 10:04:18

Hi Elke,

First for Karen, take a look at www.fqvictims.org.

According to this article this kind of makes us with heart problems d----d if we do and d----d if we don't. But after reading the article I can see that people with heart problems are not the only one's at risk with these medications.

So we just continue to rely on our doctors to tell us when we can and when we can't, I guess.

Smitty

ok, but...

by Elke - 2008-04-12 01:04:40

Karen, it's ok to take antibiotics for procedures etc, but I would opt out of these specific drugs. There are sulphur drugs and the pennicillines .
smitty- I have learned a long time ago, to question everything. When I had my first ear surgery, I noticed just on time , after getting the shot for sedation , that they were prepping the wrong ear....when I was in the hospital for the PM, an intern came and told me that my blood sugar was 476 . My blood sugar is low, under 100 and I told him that I don't believe the results.He insisted that after surgery the blood sugar can go up ! I asked him to call the lab and have the results reconfirmed.He returned 2 hours later and said that the lab had all the results for the whole floor on one piece of paper and by accident he "got out of line". The patient with the high count was a few rooms down from me. If I had not been so stubborn, and would have gotten "treated", I doubt I would be here today to tell the story. -My cardio put me on digitek and did not tell me that you have to have the levels monitored. I found out by reading the patient insert. -CNN reported just last week, that over 100,000 patients a year get the wrong meds in hospitals. Doctors and nurses are human and overworked and understaffed. They don't like when we question them, but it's our life, right? ...

Quinolones

by ela-girl - 2008-04-12 03:04:00

All I know is that I am allergic!!! I was given Levaquin through my IV after my pm surgery!!! Not a good way to start out. And my twin is allergic to Avelox...and when I say allergic, I mean she stopped breathing and we couldn't wait for the ambulance and rushed her to the ER ourselves (anaphylactic shock). Nasty thing to see and what they had to give her to get out of it wasn't any better. Because we are twins, the doctors always make me say that I'm allergic to Avelox because it's more likely than not that I would have the same reaction as she did to this medication. And my twin had this reaction to Avelox years before I had my pm surgery. YET...it wasn't until I read through the info. on the website Elke posted that I even knew Avelox was a quinolone, too! Scary. You would think that a doctor would avoid giving me any quinolones knowing the possible anaphylactic shock I could have from a quinolone--yet they gave me Levaquin during my overnight stay for the pacemaker!!! It wasn't pretty.

Frustrating. AND disappointing. At least they didn't use latex on me...*phew* Or I would have been dead meat!

Thanks for the insight...it's good to know Avelox is a quinolone, too. Not even my pharmacist made notice before when I went to fill another drug that was a quinolone (even though I didn't know it was)!

ela-girl

One more thing...

by ela-girl - 2008-04-12 03:04:18

I also realize that a person could have one reaction to a specific drug in a drug family but not to another in the same drug family. But still...to have Avelox marked on your chart and they give you another quinolone.,,why couldn't they just have given me a nice, simple, old-fashioned antibiotic that would have done the job?! It would have saved me quite the pain!

ela-girl

any drug with os or moxin

by Elke - 2008-04-12 12:04:07

ela-girl
so sorry about the bad experiences with avelox. any drug with the "ox" or moxin is a quinolone. I was taken "cipro ear drops all summer long, and just found out when I looked at the website I posted that it is also a quinolone. THe ENT insisted that it won't go into the bloodstream adn is not that dangerous, but I don't want to take any more changes. So now I"m taken a eye drop med for the ear, go figure!

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