Recently we’ve had the pleasure of working with an amazing patient, Tara Goddard at our chiropractic clinic in Overland Park. She had the unfortunate experience of being poisoned by one of the most common prescription drugs in what some in the medical professional call “the worst medication disaster in the US history”. Her story and her treatment at our office has opened our eyes to a serious risk that is out there that few, including medical doctors know about. We want to spread the word to increase awareness amounts patients so you all can make informed choices.

Most people wouldn’t think a simple antibiotic could cause permanent disability in just one dose. However that is exactly what has happened. The “big guns” of antibiotics, the Floroquinolones, have been shown to be potentially very toxic including side effects such as ruptures of Achilles and other tendons, chronic pain, neuropathy, anxiety, insomnia cardiac arrhythmias and death. These symptoms can come on after one dose, or months after finishing the medication even in young individuals.

This class of medications has a black box warning, yet many patients aren’t made aware of this. There is no doubt these drugs have life saving applications and have helped many many patients. We know this and know they have their place. However, in the literature it is clear that these types of antibiotics are given in circumstances, when less toxic, safer antibiotics could be used or at times when antibiotics aren’t necessary at all.

We want to let our patients know that if you are given an antibiotic in this class, with names such as Avelox, Cipro, Factive, Floxin, Levaquin or Norflox, we recommend asking your prescribing doctor if this class is necessary and if another type of antibiotic could do the trick. We also wanted to let our patients know that these antibiotics taken at the same time prednisone increases the risk of side effects.

The FDA has received 50,000 unique case reports of toxic reaction and they estimate they identify only up to 5% or fewer of actual reactions so the number could be as many as 500,000 sever reactions or perhaps far more.

For more information you can read the book “How we can halt the Cipro and Levaquin catastrophe”, by Jay Cohen M.D.

To hear Tara’s story, you can listen to our most recent podcast where she was interviewed.