Fluoroquinolone toxicity · In memoriam
Trish ended her life after years of agony caused by antibiotics prescribed to thousands every year
A healthy 59-year-old teacher from Liverpool took a nine-day course of ofloxacin after a routine procedure. She never recovered. On 14 August 2025 she died at an assisted-dying clinic in Switzerland.
Source: Nathan Kay, The Mail on Sunday, 5 October 2025
The Mail on Sunday, 5 October 2025, Health, page 48. Article by Nathan Kay. Photograph of the printed newspaper page.
It was only a few hours before her death that many of Trish Lightwood’s friends learned what she intended to do. On 14 August 2025 the mother of two posted on Facebook that she had travelled to the Pegasos assisted-dying clinic in Switzerland.
“Goodbye my friends. I will suffer no more. Today I will end my life.”
— Trish Lightwood, 14 August 2025
In that last post the former teacher was unequivocal about why she had made the one-way trip: debilitating, inescapable chronic pain brought on by a common type of antibiotic called fluoroquinolones.
“I was happy and healthy until I took an antibiotic that damaged me beyond repair, left alive but unable to live. I’m in constant unrelenting pain. I cannot function. I’ve spoke with seven GPs, three top professors, three pain specialists, a neurologist, three psychiatrists and psychologist. There is no cure for this. The medical profession knows this. You can only protect yourself from this by knowing the risks.”
— Trish Lightwood
Four hours after sharing the post, Trish was gone. She was 59. Her 60th birthday would have fallen three days later.
A precaution that destroyed a life
Until September 2023 Trish, from Liverpool, had never had any health problems. Her daughter Jen, then 23, a care worker, told The Mail on Sunday: “She loved exercising and followed a healthy diet. She was a very happy person as well.”
Everything changed after a hysteroscopy — a minor camera procedure to inspect the uterus. The test showed no disease. Trish had no complications. As a precaution against infection, a relatively common risk after the procedure, her doctor prescribed a nine-day course of ofloxacin, a fluoroquinolone.
Within days the side effects began. They never left.
The most debilitating was excruciating pain in her joints and tendons. She could not walk. She could not lift a glass of water without agony. When she needed to leave the house, the family took her in a wheelchair. “If there were any bumps in the path, she could really feel it through her body,” Jen said. “Any jolts she’d feel in her tendons. She would describe it as a constant pulling sensation.” Severe insomnia made it worse: she could not rest her body.
Her family — Jen, son Sean, then 21, and husband Mark, then 59 — had to rebuild daily life around her constant pain.
She saw specialist after specialist. Scans and blood tests were done. An MRI showed inflammation on her brain. Two specialists eventually diagnosed fluoroquinolone-associated disability — a catch-all name for the cluster of severe, lasting harms linked to these antibiotics. They told her there was no effective treatment.
Experts still do not know exactly what causes the condition. One theory is mitochondrial damage: the drugs injure the tiny powerhouses inside cells that generate energy.
The only guidance she was given was that in about eight out of ten patients, symptoms begin to fade after roughly nine months. When that mark came and went, Jen says her mother began to despair.
“She said, ‘I am probably going to be stuck like this forever, I don’t want to be like this.’”
— Jen Lightwood
Around Christmas 2024 Trish considered ending her own life, then pulled back. Soon after, she discussed with her family travelling to Switzerland, where she could legally access assisted dying. She chose the Pegasos clinic because she had read that other people with fluoroquinolone-associated disability had ended their lives there.
Jen said: “She knew what she wanted to do. Even when we were there in Switzerland, I said to her multiple times we could just go home. But she was so determined to do it.”
On the day, a nurse prepared an intravenous drip containing Nembutal and inserted it into Trish’s arm. Patients normally turn a small wheel to release the infusion. Trish’s joint pain made that impossible, so the clinic set up a cord for her to pull. Jen says her mother was calm. “I think it was very quick. The last thing she said to me was, ‘I’m going to sleep now.’”
Still prescribed to thousands, every month
Fluoroquinolones — ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, ofloxacin and others — are among the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the UK. They are used for serious infections of the bladder, lungs and elsewhere. For most patients they are described as safe and effective. Research and regulator files show a minority can suffer severe, lasting injury: tendon and joint pain, muscle weakness, burning or tingling, dizziness, brain fog, and in some cases psychiatric crisis including suicidal thoughts.
Since 1990 the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has linked more than 10,000 adverse reactions and at least 100 deaths to ciprofloxacin alone. In 2024 the regulator told NHS doctors that systemic fluoroquinolones should be prescribed only when other commonly recommended antibiotics are unsuitable.
Despite that warning, NHS figures cited in the article showed more than 20,000 fluoroquinolone prescriptions still being handed out every month in England.
Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed, University of Liverpool: “If you are being prescribed a fluoroquinolone antibiotic, ask your prescriber whether an antibiotic is really essential. And if it is, ask are there any other antibiotics that could be used instead.”
Jen believes fluoroquinolones should carry a prominent health warning: “This drug should be used as a last resort for life-threatening conditions.”
The Lightwood family started a petition calling for strict rules on the prescription of these antibiotics:
Sign the petition — regulate fluoroquinolone antibiotic use
MHRA statement, as published. Dr Alison Cave, MHRA Chief Safety Officer, said the agency acted in January 2024 to tell healthcare professionals that systemic fluoroquinolone antibiotics must now only be prescribed when other commonly recommended antibiotics are inappropriate, after reviewing evidence on disabling and potentially long-lasting or irreversible side effects. Anyone with suspected side effects should speak to a doctor and report them via the Yellow Card scheme, and should read the Patient Information Leaflet.
That is the official language. Trish’s language was shorter: she was happy and healthy until she took an antibiotic that damaged her beyond repair. Left alive, but unable to live.
Her last public act was still a warning. She used the hours she had left to tell other people what these drugs can do. That is why this page exists — so the newspaper cutting does not stay in a drawer, and so another family does not have to learn the name “fluoroquinolone-associated disability” only after it is too late.
If you are in crisis: UK — Samaritans 116 123 or samaritans.org. Netherlands — 113 or 0800-0113 or 113.nl. Belgium — 1813. This post is not medical advice. It is a documented patient story and a public-health warning.
Source: Nathan Kay, “Trish ended her life after years of agony… caused by antibiotics that are prescribed to thousands every year”, The Mail on Sunday, 5 October 2025. Newspaper photograph reproduced here for commentary and patient-safety advocacy, with credit to the original publication and to Trish Lightwood’s family.
