My anxiety gets the best of me sometimes

N

NameK

Well known member
Yesterday was what u would consider a good day I was relative pain free day and I was super happy.

However today I woke up and was reading about cipro and it got me scared.

I think it was last year or two years ago I had sharp pains on my lower back and stomach. Like most people I went to the doctor and they did a urine test and he gave me a one dose a day antibiotic. It was ciprofloxcain. It took it the first two days no problems.

However on the third day I took it I had a bad reaction to it (burning weak feeling in my legs ,watery eyes ,hives etc. I was able to get to the store to get some benadryl.

I am super worried and anxious that I might have potentially gotten floxed and I'm scared of my calf tightness foot pain, lower back pain fatigue pelvic pain symptom and my anxiety returning could potentially be from this a year,or two later.

Any thoughts or insight on this? It's probably my anxiety going haywire right now.
 
If you were truly screwed, you wouldn't have relatively pain-free days and long stretches without symptoms affected by mind-body work. [EDIT] - I definitely don't want to sound like I'm "downplaying" the effects of floxing, because it sucks from what I've read. But you've posted before about experiencing great improvements in symptoms after managing anxiety, so that's a pretty good thing.

Stop reading about Cipro. Refuse any fluoroquinolones that are prescribed in the future (there are safe alternatives out there, and those alternatives won't make you worry about floxing).

You've talked about anxiety on this forum before (symptoms going back to childhood well before Cipro use), and your doctor has confirmed that you have psychosomatic symptoms. It's evident that you experience a high volume of anxious thoughts. You need to calm your body down and work on managing stress and worry. Do you have a therapist? A good support group? What makes you feel safe and happy?

These thoughts about floxing are nothing more than a distraction from you getting back to fully living life and not fearing or obsessing your symptoms anymore. Your anxiety is tricking you, but you can take charge. You are stronger than your anxiety.

I'm so glad I didn't know about floxing until a long, long time after I was prescribed Cipro in college. Lord only knows what kind of anxiety-driven symptoms I'd experience, driving me to endless hours of Googling. All over nothing - because I wasn't floxed.

Here are some websites that helped me tame anxious thoughts (the first link mentions Leonardo DiCaprio purposefully developing OCD for a role - very fascinating):
https://www.ausmed.com/articles/retraining-the-amygdala/ (Retraining the Amygdala - Neuroplasticity to Retrain the Amygdala)
https://www.unlearninganxiety.com/amygdala/ (Amygdala)
 
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Thanks you have been very helpful I definitely had the symptoms that day I had a bad reaction and it just worries me but I didn't continue taking it and yes i have a therapist I see once every two weeks. She was a paramedic for 25 plus years and she believes in the mindbody approach and it's been helping for sure.

I just always have the doubt about what if all these things in experiencing are from me taking that antibiotic 3 times (500mg once a day ) and I didn't research it before hand like I typically would I nevercowikd have taken it.

When I first started having urine issues a doctor tried to prescribe me cipro but I told him I'm allergic to it as I did have bad reaction to it that scared me. I'm just worried my right calves anxiety coming back are a result of taking that. But its likely it's not.
 
Yeah I will my anxiety is alot better then it was in march April I was alit worse then I actually ended up in the er because of my anxiety I was on bactrim and thought I was having an allergic reaction. It would be interesting to hear all the people on here who had taken any of those class of antibiotics(cipro) that developed firbo shortly after.

And I know it's pretty rare for people to actually have an adverse effects from it most doctors say its relatively rare to get "floxed"
 
It does happen, and it's horrible when it does, but there are people who have recovered. I took Cipro a few times in college (student health services passed it out like candy without warning us of any adverse affects). However, I never developed any symptoms related to floxing afterward, so I can't speak to that personally. It's come up a few times on this forum.

In fact, here's a success story that was posted last week where a member with tendon damage from Cipro recovered in a year: http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/my-recovery-from-chronic-and-debilitating-pelvic-pain-pn.19607/ (My recovery from Chronic (and debilitating) Pelvic Pain/PN)
 
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I'm still really scared about it as I had a bad reaction on the last day i took it. I only took it three times but after that I stopped.

I'm just reallyvacated because someone online i was talking to only took 3 but it took them over a year to develop symptoms I've been super anxious tonight because I'm thinking alot of the things I've been experiancing are related to that (dry eyes in the summer of 2017 ,foot pain knee pain nov 2017 , back pain since February along with hip pain. Also my anxiety wasn't that bad and I developed depression in March aprilish which I've never had. It might be due to being in pain but either way I'm scared.

Any advice or insight from anyone would be appreciated
 
Yeah, I'm familiar with the stories of floxing and the timeframes, mitochondrial affects, etc. I haven't been through it myself, but I remember reading quite a bit about it years after I took Cipro. Here's what I would say:
  • What types of symptoms did you have before you took Cipro (e.g., fear of choking on food when you were 11, etc.)?
  • How severe are your current symptoms?
  • What's the longest you've gone without having any of these symptoms?
  • How does anxiety seem to affect the symptoms?
  • What eases the symptoms?
  • What is your biggest fear around floxing?
  • Does your doctor understand your fears? How do they address the fears?
A lot of people who have been floxed recover or at least significantly improve, and all of them would tell you that reading horror stories online didn't make it any better. If you're someone who is prone to stress-related symptoms (and as someone who also developed a fear of choking on food at 11, I can say that people like us are), you have to be really mindful about these things.
 
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Well i had lower back pain and stomach pain for a supposed kidney infection and the doctor have me cipro I had a bad reaction after the third day.


At the moment I'm thinking my foot pain calves stiffness lower back stiffness my joints all crack when I roll my feet or wrists.i have dry eyes.

Um well I think I've ontl had two one week periods where I isn't have symptoms I think also I think it's how I got my dry eye syndrome.

My anxiety is so bad right now I cant sleep and my legs feel weak my heart is racing wtc.

What eases my symptoms is i guess not thinking about it but right now it's hard.

My biggest fear around floxing is that someone online I talked to said you can develop symptoms up to two years after taking it. They didn't start to have symptoms for a year and now they do. My biggest fear is it not getting better or maybe my symptoms are just anxiety related.

My doctor just thinks everything I have going on is anxiety she doesnt even try to help it seems she just chalks everything off as anxiety.
 
As someone who has dealt with anxiety extensively, here’s my recommendation to you. Feel free to take it or ignore it.

I would stop reading any and all horror stories about floxing online, and I would refrain from talking to any patients who are yet to heal or at least significantly improve from floxing themselves – they aren’t going to help you. You also have no idea what else is going on in their lives. If you’re ever feeling nervous about any symptoms, I would remember these words from an actual floxed patient: “CIPRO POISONING CAN BE TREATED! YOU WILL BE OK. I know it is scary and I don’t know how long it will take, but you will be OK.”

Now, I am not saying you were floxed. I’ll be honest, as someone who isn’t a doctor and has never been floxed (or taken Cipro in many, many years), that’s ultimately not my call to make. You already know that. And you already know that floxed patients online can’t diagnose you either. But given that you have demonstrated high levels of anxiety since you were a child (as evident by your phobia of choking at 11), and given that your biggest fear around potential floxing is never getting better, it’s important to remember that plenty of people do recover after being floxed.

Again, I am not saying that you were floxed. I am saying this because focusing on the fact that absolutely nothing is hopeless can decrease the anxiety you have about floxing. This is incredibly important for anybody who deals with anxious thoughts. Sometimes even perceiving something as hopeless can result in us getting very hung up on it, further creating more symptoms that never seem to improve. You don’t want to end up in that cycle of endless thought loops. This is completely avoidable.

The member on this forum who healed from floxing in a year is a great example of someone who can demonstrate hope. They know firsthand that healing from Cipro and mitochondrial issues is very, very possible. If you aren’t comfortable with your doctor, find another one who takes you more seriously and can better ease your concerns around this issue.

Ultimately, if mind-body work is helping you in any way, that’s a good sign. It’s clear that you aren’t losing your life over any symptoms. I’ll say it again: even having a week without symptoms is a good sign. I genuinely think you need to take a deep breath and remember that you are going to be OK. People who were floxed and have severely crippling symptoms over long periods of time generally don’t say that not thinking about the symptoms eases them, so that puts you in a pretty good place.

You aren’t the only person who has concerns about floxing on this forum, as you already know from the link I posted. People have incorporated mind-body work into their healing after fluoroquinolone use. Regardless of what’s going on with you, this forum is here for you because we understand the mind-body connection and how anxiety makes everything worse.

You can keep talking to floxed patients who are in the midst of a crisis that's much worse than yours, and you can keep wondering whether symptoms will continue to appear or disappear. Or you can make the choice to focus on what's in your control and techniques that do help ease your symptoms. The first option is eventually going to drive you insane. The second option won't. If you're going to talk to anyone, I would reach out to someone like that healed member on this forum who has a story of encouragement and hope.
 
I did try and reach out to the person on the post you mentioned no response as of yet. My anxiety could just be messing with me as before I thought I was slowly starting to get better but once I started to think about it my anxiety just skyrocketed to the point I couldn't really sleep last night
 
And that’s what’s very interesting about your situation - again, it’s evident that anxiety is playing a contributing role here. You really don’t want to spend the next few years looking out for floxing symptoms. That’s going to lead to nothing but self-torture... which leads to even more symptoms via the mind-body connection.

You didn’t end up in a critically severe situation, you don’t sound crippled or disabled. But worrying about this - which clearly makes you feel worse - can indeed lead to symptoms that stick around for a long time. It doesn’t have to be that way.

People heal. Whatever reaction you had to the Cipro doesn’t have to become a permanent thing. And you’re still alive and able to contribute to the world.
 
Yes that is very true for all i know this could be my tms playing tricks on me trying to distract me from healing I think If i had tendon issues in my calves it would be more apprent I think. Is leftover symptoms from cipro tms who knows ?
 
It very well could be. You have to believe in the body’s ability to heal. And you have to believe that you are OK and don’t need to be paranoid about symptoms for the next couple of years. Look at positive role models who have gotten better from all sorts of ailments, not the individuals hanging around online floxing or fibro or brain fog or whatever forums with no improvement. The mind is a powerful thing.

It’d be different if nobody ever healed... but they most certainly do. :)
 
And if I were you, instead of wondering about the next year or two and whether things will get worse or stay the same, I’d think about how many people improve and kick ass. This goes for life in general, and for all of us on these forums.
 
Thanks I just finished a phone call session with my therapist and it helped she used to work as a paramedic and she said that the long term damage is extremely rare . And I really need to just like break my phone or something because I was doing better there for some then I relapsed its almost like I addicted to obsessing over what if to my health
 
Truly, it is rare. I'll say it again: If you were doing better before reading more about Cipro and getting freaked out, take that as a major sign of anxiety making things worse. What made you decide to read about it? Was it a desire to prove to yourself that you don't have it? Curiosity because you were so focused on it before?

I know what it's like to have obsessive thoughts stemming back to childhood. It most certainly does feel like an addiction at times. Obsession is one of the things that generates symptoms - keeping old ones going and new ones coming. And it can prevent the body from healing from many things.

You've had an entire week without the symptoms before, and it's possible to have another week without them. Nothing is hopeless, and recovery happens. We all have to stay positive.

We're all here for you!
 
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Well ironically I was reading a sucesscsptey on this site about pelvic pain and how cipro gave them side effects for a year so I stupidly started researching about it and bam my anxiety lit off like a fuse on a firework I couldn't stop thinking about it I was obsessed with negative thoughts i called my therapist today and had a phone session with her it helped for the time being but I'm sort of back to being worried
 
Why are you worried? You had an awesome phone session with your therapist, you know that anxiety was the culprit behind the worsened symptoms, you know that people heal from floxing daily (which disproves your biggest fear), you know it's possible for you to not have symptoms (you've experienced it firsthand), and you know that what you're worried about is very rare. That's all great news!
 
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So you think the chances I was floxed were very unlikely and my anxiety reading about it is distracting me from healing
 
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