Levaquin is a powerful, broad spectrum antibiotic commonly used prescribed to treat a variety of ailments. It has a black box warning from the FDA due to a 3%-30% incidence of negative side effect including pain, connective tissue damage, and anxiety.
While it is a very powerful and effective antibiotic, it can also come with a cost of permanent, painful, and disabling damage. It would be wise to know as much as you can about Levaquin if you are considering taking a prescription.
Levaquin (Levofloxacin) is a member of the Quinolone class of antibiotics that includes Cipro (Ciprofloxacin) and Avelox (Moxifloxacin). Levaquin gets most of the focus because statistically more people are damaged from it that Cipro or any of the others. There are at least 9 drugs like Levaquin in the Quinolone class that have been approved by the FDA only to be pulled from the market due to unacceptable levels of damaging side effects to patients.
Most people taking Levaquin have no obvious problem with it. But depending on who you talk to, and depending on the symptoms you look for, anywhere from 3%-30% of patients taking Levaquin experience mild to severe side effects.
In my experience, people injured by Levaquin fall into two distinct categories: they either get better in 12 months or less, or they suffer from what appears to be permanent damage, that can be disabling and even continue to get worse.
The most common side effect of Levaquin is Achilles tendon rupture. This means that someone can take even a single dose of Levaquin, potentially experience cramping, anxiety, stiffness and/or pain that night, and when they stand up the next morning, their Achilles tendon literally falls apart. Symptoms can also show up as more mild forms of anxiety, stiffness, and pain.
Levaquin pulls a huge amount of Magnesium from the body (thus causing cramping and spasm, anxiety and claustrophobia), damages mitochondria that manufacture cell energy (thus tendon cells starve and die off in huge numbers allowing tendon to degrade overnight or over time), and can even damage the DNA of connective tissue (such that when new cells grow in they are already damaged, literally you ‘heal’ bad).
Again, Levaquin helps many many people, but you may want to weigh the pros and cons before taking a prescription, especially if it’s for something minor like acne. Yes, people are prescribed this powerful broad spectrum antibiotic for acne! Imagine being 18 years old and being prescribed Levaquin for acne only to get permanent pain and connective tissue damage from it.