Ciprofloxacin problem reaction

[arlowood]

Hi Folks

Just thought I'd flag this up since I don't believe the medical profession are fully aware of the problems.

Suffered about 6 weeks ago with testicular pain which one GP at our surgery diagnosed as epididymitis. He prescribed a 4 week course of Naproxen as he felt there was no infection. After the 4 weeks things had only improved marginally so I spoke to another GP who advised trying antibiotics to clear the problem. He prescribed a 10 day course of Ciprofloxacin (a fluoroquinolone antibiotic) and said call back after that if there were still problems.

Started the course and within 2 days was experiencing pain in my right hip and knee. I had suffered mild arthritic pain in these joints for some years and just put it down to a flare up of the old problems. After 4 days however the pains were still there and I had also developed pains in my finger joints and both wrists.

On day six I was woken during the night by a burning pain in my right achilles tendon and general pain and cramping in my leg muscles. After checking the adverse reaction notes for the drug I was alarmed to read that tendonitis and tendon rupture was a possible side effect.

I called the GP next day and he seemed unaware of these potential problems although I did point out that a web search had shown up several class action law suits in the US for this type of antibiotic relating to tendonitis and tendon rupture.

He advised me to come off the drug and prescribed more Naproxen for the tendonitis. However on reading the Naproxen leaflet it advised against taking it with flouroquinolone antibiotics. I therefore waited a day or so before starting the Naproxen in the hope that the Cipro would be out of my system.

Things have now improved - no tendon pain but still some joint pain in my hip and knee. Hopefully they will go in time.

Main problem is that my GP was unaware of these issues and did not flag up ahead of time that problems might arise. I certainly did not expect to suffer a ruptured achilles from taking an antibiotic.

[bionicwoman308]

Cipro and tendon rupture has been well documented in the pediatric literature, the pediatricians will never prescribe flouroquinolones to kids for this reason; the warnings regarding this in adults just came out in the last year. The FDA makes a pretty good effort to let docs know about when meds they prescribe have a new warning with these big "Med Alert" envelopes; plus alot of companies will actually put these warnings in a priority mail envelope to all docs just to get their attention. It should have also been on that little info. sheet that comes when you fill a prescription from a pharmacy too. Ask your pharmacist about when it would be safe to start the naprosyn.
Just as an aside - back issues (nerve root) can present as pain in the testes too; so can torsion or testicular cancer. If the original pain isn't better consider a urologist