Sometimes reporters get things wrong (surprise) --
Post# of 72447
Posted On: 10/12/2015 11:00:40 AM
Sometimes reporters get things wrong (surprise) -- they may have said "new class of antibiotics" when what they meant was a new antibiotic that is based on old antibiotics, but better. There are several of those in the works.
I just want to caution everyone again: if some doctor suggests giving you or a family member Cipro, Levaquin, or any of the other quinolones, remember that these are NOT "safe" antibiotics like zithromycin or sulfa or penicillin, for which allergy to them is the biggest risk. I just saw my friend again recently, the guy who was prescribed Levaquin for a sinus infection and now is wheel-chair bound, has seizures, and though he says the cognitive problems are better, he's still not who he used to be. Severe reactions to quinolones are NOT uncommon, and they should be used only in life-threatening situations, not for routine infections.
One of my many unproven theories is that the high incidence of dementia after people go into nursing homes (when they didn't have it before) is because nursing home doctors routinely prescribe Cipro for bladder infections and respiratory infections, because it is easy to administer and is so powerful it knocks out the infections quickly (rather than a much longer course of low-dose, safer antibiotics). BUT -- if Levaquin could cause the kind of effects I described above to a previously healthy, athletic 50-year-old, what do you think they might do to a frail elderly person?
I just want to caution everyone again: if some doctor suggests giving you or a family member Cipro, Levaquin, or any of the other quinolones, remember that these are NOT "safe" antibiotics like zithromycin or sulfa or penicillin, for which allergy to them is the biggest risk. I just saw my friend again recently, the guy who was prescribed Levaquin for a sinus infection and now is wheel-chair bound, has seizures, and though he says the cognitive problems are better, he's still not who he used to be. Severe reactions to quinolones are NOT uncommon, and they should be used only in life-threatening situations, not for routine infections.
One of my many unproven theories is that the high incidence of dementia after people go into nursing homes (when they didn't have it before) is because nursing home doctors routinely prescribe Cipro for bladder infections and respiratory infections, because it is easy to administer and is so powerful it knocks out the infections quickly (rather than a much longer course of low-dose, safer antibiotics). BUT -- if Levaquin could cause the kind of effects I described above to a previously healthy, athletic 50-year-old, what do you think they might do to a frail elderly person?
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