we´ve received the following story of a Cipro victim:
21 Things Cipro‚s Warning Label WON‘T Tell You
1. The side effects listed on Cipro‚s warning label (plus many others that aren‘t) can be PERMANENT and result in lifelong disability!!! 95% of prescription drugs on the market today have transient side effects, meaning their side effects cease once the drug is stopped. This is NOT the case with Cipro! Often times Cipro‚s most devastating side effects don‘t even surface until after you‚ve completed your entire course, and they then persist for months, years or in some cases forever! Bayer blatantly hides this fact, as the word „permanent“ appears absolutely NOWHERE on Cipro‘s warning label!!! This is criminal.
2. Cipro is a purely synthetic chemotherapeutic antibiotic in the fluoroquinolone (also called „quinolone“ or just „quin“) class of drugs. Over HALF of all fluoroquinolone antibiotics have been pulled from the market for their horrific safety records. And the ones that remain on the market (Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and a few others) are no safer! A study of ADRs in Italy, published in 2005, found that among more than 50 types of drugs, fluoroquinolones were involved in the largest number of serious problems and accounted for 11 percent of all adverse events.1 Every single drug in this class carries a black box warning–the equivalent of a skull & crossbones–for its nasty side effects. A black box warning is the last step before taking a drug completely off the market. There is NO SUCH THING as a safe fluoroquinolone antibiotic!
3. The risk of experiencing an adverse reaction to Cipro (including, but certainly not limited to tendon rupture) is MUCH higher than the warning label would have you believe. These adverse reactions are also much more severe and long-lasting than Bayer will admit to.
4. Cipro‚s warning label makes it sound as if tendon rupture is the worst possible scenario. What it doesn‘t tell you is that Ciprofloxacin actually unleashes an entire systemic toxicity SYNDROME often referred to by victims as „floxing“ or being „floxed.“ Others refer to it as „fluoroquinolone toxicity syndrome.“ Regardless of what you want to call it, it is absolutely devastating and commonly includes 30-40 different adverse symptoms all being experienced simultaneously and lasting for YEARS. Many of these symptoms are devastating in and of themselves. This Cipro-induced toxicity syndrome wreaks absolute havoc on EVERY part of a person‚s body–every tendon and joint in the body can become affected, every organ (including the brain), peripheral nervous system (resulting in severe and potentially permanent pain conditions, muscle weakness or automonic dysfunction), vision damage up to and including temporary blindness, retinal tears and/or permenant double vision, permanent tinnitus (ringing in the ears), long lasting or permanent central nervous system damage (including unrelenting insomnia, memory problems, random panic, depersonalization, psychosis), chronic fatigue, multiple chemical sensitivities, severe muscle wasting, hair loss, skin changes, severe dryness issues (dry skin/eyes/mouth/nose), extensive dental damage and on and on and ON. While many of these side effects are indeed listed on Cipro‘s warning label, many are not. And again, nowhere in the drug‚s literature does Bayer acknowlege the existence of this devastating syndrome–nor do they disclose that if you fall victim to it you‘ll be experiencing nearly ALL of the ADR‚s listed on the warning label at once!!! More than a few victims, as you may imagine, have been driven to suicide as a result of being floxed by fluoroquinolone antibiotics including Cipro.
5. Cipro attacks much more than just your tendons–it is toxic to ALL connective tissues including muscle/bone/fascia/skin/nerves/even cartilage!!!2 A labratory study done on puppies showed that Cipro actually melts the cartilage out of their joints! (In case you didn‘t already know–cartilage does not regenerate! Once it‚s gone, it‘s gone. Hip/knee replacements, anyone?). Degeneration of the cartilage matrix in humans has been observed following as few as two oral doses of ciprofloxacin.3 This information has been known by scientists for over a DECADE now, and yet the word „cartilage“ still appears absolutely nowhere on Cipro‚s warning label! Wouldn‘t you like to know before you ingest a drug that it could potentially destroy your cartilage?!
6. Cipro does not cause „tendonitis“ as Bayer describes it on the warning label. Tendonitis is an overuse injury. Ciprofloxacin is directly toxic to tendon cells, chemically altering and destroying them on a cellular or even DNA level. There‚s a big difference!
7. Cipro-induced injuries DO NOT HEAL NORMALLY, if at all. Floxed bodies lose their ability to heal! A small injury that would heal in a matter of days for a „normal“ person often takes weeks or months to heal in a floxed person, or may even become permenant.
8. Cipro can and will attack your body regardless of your age or prior level of health. Do not think that because you are young, healthy or have never experienced any tendon or joint problems that you are safe taking this drug. It doesn‘t work that way! In fact Cipro is not even permitted for use in patients under the age of 18. Why? Because it interferes with the development of childrens‚ still-growing connective tissues. There‘s that „connective tissues“ thing again…are you starting to see a pattern with this stuff? Cipro can render a top athlete of any age completely crippled and unable to walk, let alone workout or compete ever again.
9. Do not think because you‚ve taken Cipro on previous occassions without any apparent problems that you‘re safe to take it again! Cipro damage is cumulative, and the drug can turn on you at any time. Everyone‚s threshold is different, but given enough of it, anyone can and will become floxed by Cipro. Once you surpass your threshold–that‘s it. There is no going back. Many disabled Cipro victims report having taken Cipro „successfully“ a number of times before it finally turned on them.
10. Unlike most other drugs whose side effects surface while actually on the medication, Cipro is capable of causing severe delayed reactions that don‚t even manifest until long after you‘ve finished taking the drug. This is unbelievably dangerous. What it means is that you could be having a potentially permanent, crippling reaction to the drug and have NO IDEA until it‚s too late! Victims often report finishing some or all of their pills before the „bomb“ finally goes off inside their body. It is not uncommon for a week or two to pass between the completion of a course of Cipro and the onset of its toxicity. Once you become floxed, your risk of spontaneously tearing or rupturing a tendon continues for up to FIVE YEARS after you have ingested the medication!!! Obviously people who suffer delayed reactions often never make the connection between their sudden ‘mysterious‚ health problems and the antibiotic they took days, weeks or even months prior, so these reactions go largely unreported.
11. Numerous individuals (both young and old) have had to undergo full joint replacement surgeries after taking Cipro! And yet joint destruction appears NOWHERE on the warning label.
12. People have wound up on crutches or in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives from as little as a few pills. As stated earlier, it is not uncommon for every tendon and joint in a person‘s body to become affected including shoulders, arms and hands, so there are instances where an electric wheelchair or motorized scooter becomes one‚s only option. You know you‘re disabled when you can‚t even wheel yourself around in a standard wheelchair!
13. In addition to being highly toxic to connective tissue, Cipro is also a neurotoxin capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier and causing severe long-term neuropsychiatric side effects. These include panic and anxiety, insomnia, seizures, confusion, depersonalization, psychosis, dystonia, memory loss, paranoia and hallucinations. These side effects can persist for YEARS or in some instances even be permenant! People have ended up in psychiatric wards or worse–killed themselves–as a result of some of these psychiatric side effects. Imagine for a moment being unable to sleep more than 1-2 hours a night, every night, for YEARS!!! video
14. There are entire online forum communities and support groups full of fluoroquinolone antibiotic (Cipro) victims.
15. Dental damage! Cipro can calcify all of the nerves in your teeth as well as permanently dry out your mouth, promoting extensive tooth decay and/or tooth loss. There are people in their thirties who now wear dentures as a direct result of Cipro destroying all of their teeth from the inside out! Others have had teeth literally break off at the gum line after becoming floxed. Again–NO mention of this anywhere on the warning label!
16. As stated previously, Cipro is a 100% synthetic chemotherapeutic drug. It works by interfering with bacterial DNA, preventing it from replicating. The problem is, how can a synthetic chemical differentiate between bacterial DNA and your DNA!? As it turns out, it can‘t. Hint: If your cells can not replicate, your body literally begins to fall apart! Which…ironically…is exactly what happens when a person becomes floxed! Tendons literally just fall off the bone, retinas spontaneously tear, cartilage erodes out of joints.
17. The vast majority of doctors are completely ignorant about Cipro and its horrific and long-lasting side effects. Most won‚t believe you when you tell them a prescription antibiotic has caused your slew of sudden disabling health problems–even if your symptoms match the ones listed right on the drug‘s warning label! They‚ll insist that the drug can‘t possibly still be harming you days/weeks/months/years after you‚ve ingested it. They‘ll try and tell you you‚re just getting old or they‘ll subject you to a myriad of expensive testing in hopes of finding an auto-immune disorder or some other explanation for your problems. Only there is no auto-immune disorder you were poisoned by Cipro. Even if you do manage to find a doctor who is familiar with Cipro toxicity, there is absolutely nothing they or anyone else can do to reverse the damage once it has occurred. There is quite simply NO treatment for floxing–no remedy, no tonic, no antidote. Once the damage is done, it‚s DONE. And yet Cipro‘s warning label instructs you to call your doctor immediately if you begin showing signs of an adverse reaction! What‚s the point?!
18. Doctors often try to misdiagnose flox victims as having auto-immune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, since many Cipro-induced health problems mimic those of auto-immune disorders. Other favorite misdiagnosises include reflex sympathetic dystrophy (also called chronic regional pain syndrome or CRPS), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, Raynaulds syndrome, and Sjogrens. Very few doctors–outside of alternative practitioners–will ever attribute your slew of health problems to having been poisoned by a prescription drug.
19. Bayer does not know the mechanism behind how or why Cipro cripples people (at least that‘s what they claim). They also do not care, and are not interested in finding out. Bayer does NOT like to hear from their victims and does everything in their power to silence them. Many websites set up in order to spread information and awareness about floxing have been threatened with legal action and shut down. Others have ‚mysteriously‘ disappeared from the web over the years without explanation. We‚ll see how long this one lasts!
20. If you become crippled by Cipro, don‘t expect any lawyers to take your case. They will claim you were warned. Of course, as I have just outlined, you were not at all warned adequately or truthfully about the scope, liklihood, severity or duration (aka permanence) of Cipro‚s nasty and life-altering side effects. Then there‘s the issue of proving cause and effect and statute of limitations with a drug whose side effects sometimes don‚t surface until years after being ingested! Talk about the perfect crime!
21. SSDI does not recognize Cipro poisoning as a diagnosis, so you will have to fight tooth and nail to obtain any disability benefits once you‘ve become crippled. The very government that allows this poison to be handed out like candy then turns around and tries to prevent you from collecting disability benefits once you‚ve fallen victim to it!
In short, a prescription for Cipro could end up being the most expensive prescription you EVER fill. My life ended on October 25th 2009 thanks to just (12) 500mg Cipro pills I‘d taken over the course of six days. Other than a suspected urinary infection, I had been an incredibly healthy and active 30-year-old prior to ingesting those six grams worth of poison. SIX GRAMS was all it took to completely and utterly end my life. I met NONE of the „risk factors“ listed on Cipro‚s warning label, and yet here I am years later essentially bedridden and unable to walk with devastating injuries to my musculoskeletal and nervous systems. Think for a moment of all the things that make your life worth living. Now imagine suddenly being unable to do any of those things. That is my reality now thanks to Bayer Pharmaceuticals, an inept FDA and my doctor who I trusted to „do no harm.“ Those 12 pills cost me absolutely EVERYTHING. No more work. No more traveling. No more gym. No more living on my own. No more walks around the neighborhood. No more trips to the mall. No more grocery shopping. No more swimming. No more tennis. No more bowling. No more dating. No more dreams of buying my own home or opening my own business. Hell, I can‘t even walk to the mailbox! My car is gone, credit is destroyed, quality of life demolished. EVERYTHING IS GONE NOW!!!
This site is my way of screaming from the mountaintops since the FDA is obviously NOT doing their job!!! Bayer may have crippled me but as long as I‚m still breathing they will NEVER shut me up about this! I will do my best to spread this website to the far reaches of the internet in an effort to try and reach as many people as possible before they too become unsuspecting victims of this horrific drug. This NEVER should have happened to me–not when there are a plethora of other, safer antibiotics on the market that are just as effective at killing bacteria WITHOUT the risk of permanently maiming you! The fact that both Bayer and the FDA know about Cipro‘s horrific safety profile and not only look the other way but actively COVER UP these facts and keep them hidden from the public and the medical community is downright criminal!!! Do you know that I‚ve filed adverse reaction reports with the FDA every six months since this happened to me and not ONCE has anyone from the FDA bothered to contact me for any further information? As it turns out, the FDA‘s main interest is NOT assuring public safety but rather maximizing drug company profits.
Please read my story, visit the external links I have compiled and warn everyone you know about what is happening. I do not want one more person to fall victim to Bayer‚s limitless greed and the FDA‘s utter ineptitude and corruption!
CIPRO IS POISON!!!