Hi all,
I recently "discovered" another possible side effect of Ciprofloxacin (and any of the fluoroquinolone category of antibiotics). This risk is listed on the label, but I was unaware of it, so I have no idea if it was always there, or if it has been recently added.
In addition to the risk of tendonitis, torn ligaments, and peripheral neuropathy, these antibiotics can also cause tinnitus, and/or they can make existing tinnitus much worse. I'm not sure if this problem began immediately, but I didn't notice it at first, so it probably became worse with each passing day. At any rate, during the week while I was taking Cipro, I began to notice that during the day I would suddenly become aware that my ears were ringing like mad.
I've had tinnitus for over 30 years, so my ears always ring, but after about 15 or 20 years, I sort of got used to it, and hardly ever noticed it. It eventually just becomes "background noise", after enough time has passed, and the body becomes accustomed to it. But these episodes were too much to ignore. The amplitude of the noise was very loud. I would estimate it to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the point at which prolonged exposure can cause permanent hearing loss (around 84 db, as I recall). IOW, if this sort of ringing noise became permanent, I would almost surely have a serious problem understanding normal conversation. The point is, I don't need any more hearing damage — no one does.
On the next to last day of the 7-day regimen, when the elevated level of ringing caught my attention, it finally dawned on me what was causing it, because I had just taken a Cipro tablet roughly an hour earlier, and this pretty much matched the timing on the previous days. Another mystery resolved, as the light bulb finally came on. I'm fortunate, because the tinnitus seemed to throttle down after a few hours as the Cipro became metabolized. And now that I'm off the Cipro, while the chronic ringing noise in my head seems to be slightly worse than it was previously, at least it hasn't been exacerbated enough to be totally debilitating (as far as my hearing ability is concerned). I've lost some ground, but I've also learned a valuable lesson — no more Cipro for me.
So now I'm faced with the not insignificant problem of what to do it I need an antibiotic in the future. I can't seem to find one that doesn't cause significant problems for me. As you probably recall, the last one I tried, Bactrim DS, caused much worse problems.
Life does have a way of becoming complex and convoluted at times, doesn't it.
Tex
Another Possible Side Effect Of Cipro
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Another Possible Side Effect Of Cipro
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