I Only Took Two Pills of Cipro – Robert Montez, 17 years old, From Healthy Teen to Floxie in 48 Hours – Robert’s Testimony (2012)

Floxie Testimony

I Only Took Two Pills of Cipro – Robert Montez, 17 years old

Written 1 October 2012 · 4 months after being floxed

Before this I was a very healthy teen. I was very involved in school, always keeping my grades high and was on track for an early graduation. I was planning on getting into a 5-year nursing program after finishing high school. I have also always had a big passion for music and art since I was very little. Growing up around many genres of music, I always felt very blessed to have heard them and set forth goals to become a musician. Having learned how to sing, play guitar and bass, music became a part of my everyday life and soon inspired me to want to form a band.

Aside from school and my hobbies, I have been involved in a 4-year relationship with my high school sweetheart Alycia, who this has very much affected as well. We spent much of our relationship being very committed, discussing after-high-school plans and goals. Being so important to me, this has devastated much of my plans and dreams, striking me at the most joyous time of my life — the time when all my plans were to be set into action. I often think about how my life has ended as soon as it started.

On May 25, 2012 my life was forever changed.

One morning while bathing I discovered a testicular lump. Soon after I scheduled an appointment with my doctor. I was very alarmed because cancer runs in my father’s side of the family and I was in an extreme amount of pain. After a visit with my doctor, he ruled it out as being an epididymal cyst and was quick to prescribe me a round of Cipro 500 mg twice a day for 10 days.

That same day I was starting my summer break out of school. I picked up my prescription and headed home. I only took two of those poison pills!!!

I quickly noticed something was wrong. I did not know what hit me at all. I was lying on the bed when I suddenly noticed a very odd sensation in both my Achilles tendons, as if all the nutrients had been sucked out of them and they became extremely brittle and weak. I tried to walk and felt as if they were going to snap right beneath me. Then followed a horrible feeling of every ounce of life being sucked out of my body, with a very intense panic attack. I was lost on how to describe how I felt next. I felt like I was not myself. I felt like the world around me was different and dream-like — but this was terrifying.

For the following days I was feeling very flu-like and very weak, and very scared of everything around me, like a helpless animal. After I read the package a bit more I came across some of the mentioned side effects. I very quickly started a Google search on Cipro side effects and was extremely horrified by everything I read. I was very scared and to this day feel like this is a nightmare that I have not been able to awake from or accept.

A list of all my side effects from this antibiotic:

I am 4 months out from my initial floxing and I have many cycles of my symptoms. All vary in duration and length, but about 6 or so of the ones I mentioned I have on a daily basis. Some days go okay and others not so smooth, with some weeks them peaking in intensity. Mentally I feel more normal than early floxing but still not myself. I experience much pain in my legs, making it hard to walk sometimes. Both Achilles are still a bother, with my left still being acute. Nerve pains are very strange because they seem to shift to different locations.

Overall I do feel better in some ways and sometimes worse in others than early on. This really is a back-and-forth thing, like many other floxed people have described. I am trying certain suggestions from other sufferers, which I change up: whey protein, magnesium supplements, vitamin C, hot Epsom salt baths, vitamins A & D, Cellfood, lemon water, apple cider vinegar, reverse osmosis water. I try to eat as healthy as I can, but it’s sort of hard when you have to rely on your mother and money has to stretch.

At times I don’t know if I have gone back in time in recovery or forward. It’s very hard to tell with all the major ups and downs. But I know we all heal to our own degree, and I do feel thankful that at 4 months — although nowhere near my normal old self — I have made some improvement.

Knowing that there are many like myself highly saddens me, but at the same time offers comfort that I’m not alone. I have definitely a long road ahead of me, as do we all. But I believe time is a big factor in our recovery. I am still very scared about the future but must keep on living, hoping and praying every day for recovery.

Please, if any other young floxies can relate, share your story — or anyone, it does not matter. I believe as long as we all stick together we can prevent this horrible illness from happening to anyone else.

~ Peace & Love ~
Robert

Original testimony written by Robert Montez, 17 years old, four months after being floxed by only two tablets of Ciprofloxacin 500 mg in May 2012.
Shared here to keep the voices of young floxies visible.