Antibiotics Tied to Heart Valve Problems

In March of 2020 I was put on Cipro for diverticulitis. By June I was getting short of breath. An echocardiogram and TEE showed that I had two ruptured mitral valve chord tendons, causing a severe mitral valve prolapse. (my echo from a year ago was normal.) I had to undergo open heart surgery in September to repair the tendons and the mitral valve. Coincidence???

I have used Cipro for many years for treatment of prostate infections. My doctor went to Cipro because other antibiotics and sulfa medicines either didn't work or I was allergic to them. This line from the actual study is troubling: "These results show that the risk of aortic and mitral regurgitation is highest with current use followed by recent use. No risk was observed with past use of FQs." The data from the study also indicate that the percentages listed in this NYT article (i.e., 240 percent higher, etc.) give an incomplete picture of the total data. In fact, the FQ users had a .8% (not 8%, not 80%) more likelihood of having current regurgitation problems. In other words, it is rare. The comparison of FQs with two other antibiotics, instead of with all other types of antibiotics, give the impression of data snooping. In other words, do a lot of analyses and then report the two that were "statistically significant." Are these two types of medicines used to treat different types of infections? The study doesn't address whether the effects on regurgitation could be the result of the type of infection and/or the severity of infection and/or the resistance of the infection to amoxicillin and azithromycin.

I’ve had a FQ prescribed to me twice, by different GPs. The first time was for a bronchial infection. It was before there were black box warnings, but because I’d never had the drug before, and because I’m generally wary of drugs, I looked it up online before taking it. I was so scared by patient reports that I called the doc the next day and asked if I could have azithro instead, a drug I already knew I could tolerate. He said sure, and it remedied my infection, and that was that. The second prescription came a few years later (with black box warnings out at this point) from a different GP, to treat a UTI which, it turned out, I didn’t even have. People can roll their eyes at “Dr. Google” and at irritating patients like me who are mistrustful of the medical establishment and insist on doing their own research —but had I blindly accepted the wisdom of these doctors, I (in my early 40s and with a toddler) could very easily have ended up being one of the cautionary tales in these comments. It makes me LIVID. I am *so sorry* for those of you who have lost vital components of your health to the arrogance, carelessness and/or miseducation of the common physician.

Levaquin: Cousin of a cousin had to have two operations to correct tendon damage; I had every adverse effect listed (as I realized later) and stopped it after four days. No more floxes for me.

Thank you for covering another horrible health problem routinely caused by these incredibly toxic drugs, the FQs. While this articular reaction may be rare, and the aortic ruptures may be rare and the Achilles tendon ruptures may be rare and the retinal detachments may be rare and the neuropathy may be rare and the psychiatric distress may be rare, combined they are anything but rare and are in fact commonplace. The sad and sorry truth is that the adverse reactions to FQs are happening to people all day, every day, and it has to stop. This is a massive ongoing catastrophe. Doctors are oblivious to the massive amounts of harm they are doing to their patients and routinely misdiagnosing their victims with fibro, ALS, Parkinson's, MS, autoimmune disorders and so on. There are millions of us but 99.9% have no idea what happened. I urge everyone to google some terms like "fluoroquinolone toxicity" and "floxed", the slang term for our condition, stemming from the generic names of the drugs, most of which end in "floxacin". You need to know about this. One expert said there is nothing that causes more head to toe damage that won't just kill you. We suffer HORRIFIC damage that leaves us living in a half dead state struggling to survive and seriously considering suicide. We lose a lot of people to that. Please, protect yourselves. Look into this further and avoid this dangerous class of drugs like the plague, which is actually one of the only times they should be used.

There are many fluoroquinolone victim support groups on the internet for anyone who has been damaged or thinks they may have been damaged by these drugs. This article is just the tip of the iceberg. The effects from taking these drugs can happen months after taking them that’s why most doctors are unaware of all the effects. It’s also possible that the drug reps downplay the serious side effects when selling these drugs to doctors.

I hope media can play their role in addressing this important issue. Guidelines and policies must change. Agencies must be held accountable when guidelines and pixies are not in place despite evidence. It is criminal to see quality of so many lives being impacted for a wrong reason: lack of awareness and guidelines. NYT: please don’t rest till the problem Is addressed.

I'm hoping that medical professionals and journalists will stop referring to fluoroquinolone adverse events as rare. I think they are common, but they slide under the radar because fluoroquinolones are administered when people are ill, and their wide range of negative symptoms are often confused with the downstream adverse events of the illnesses for which the medications are prescribed. I think that fluoroquinolone adverse events are underreported, and under-diagnosed. Although the FDA has given fluoroquinolone-associated disability an acronym - FQAD - there is still no ICD-10 code, or modifier for an existing ICD-10 code, to allow billable diagnoses. Thus, there is little systemic medical profession acceptance that this is a widespread condition, and no money for developing diagnostics and treatments. And yet, unfortunately, people affected live with the resulting problems for the rest of their lives. I've lived with it for 20 years. Undiagnosed and untreated for the first 17 years, I'm partially disabled as a result. I had to diagnose myself, and am learning how to manage symptoms. But some of the damage is irreversible. Every medical professional who's worked with me has either missed the cause, or has been skeptical until they observed effects unfolding in my health. Only then did they - reluctantly - begin to accept, and then start understanding, some of what was - and still is - happening. Can the Diagnosis column report on FQAD-affected people?

When Cipro was new and being widely dispensed, I developed severe bilateral knee tendonosis three weeks after ending a course of treatment. It lasted for weeks. My dermatologist guessed that it was Cipro, so I have avoided this drug class ever since - I list it as an allergy in my medical records. In the ensuing years, the black box warnings keep increasing in number and severity - yet doctors keep prescribing them. I will take them only if I have an infection that would otherwise prove fatal. They’re nasty drugs.

for 30 years I was required take 2g of Amoxicillin before any dental procedure. this was due to the fact that I have a heart murmur. apparently, having this anomaly predisposes one to blood borne infections that will settle in the heart. 5-10 years ago, this practice was stopped as it really didn't offer any real benefit. my immune system is completely shot. in 2003 I was diagnosed with Osteomylitis of the skull and septum. the infection was MRSA. PICC line, 6 weeks on infusion antibiotics. I continue to be plagued with chronic sinus infections. I became a vegetarian to limit my exposure to further antibiotic poisoning.

Is this ever given to livestock and could it be in our food chain or water supply ?

Thank you The New York Times for drawing attention to this important research from the University of British Columbia. There still appears to be somewhat of a vacuum of knowledge among some (by no means all) in the medical community concerning the dangers that fluoroquinolones can possess. There is also a growing amount of scientific and medical research/literature out there in addition to this research, and it is pointing in a similar direction. Even when a person has manifest and testable damage, some (by no means all) medical professionals can be reticent to say with certainty that the damage was cause by a fluoroquinolone, especially if they were the prescribing professional and the reaction is delayed. Noticable tendon damage can manifest months after discontinuation of the fluoroquinolone (this point was made by specialists at the European Medicines Agency Public Hearing into Fluoroquinolones in June 2018).