122. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS

It has been discussed in previous paragraphs that there are an array of illnesses that share common ground with the floxing syndrome (QTS) and that tend to baffle doctors. In all the cases we should consider the drug- induced version of each disorder:

Fibromyalgia. We are not suffering from fibromyalgia, but receiving such a diagnosis is at least an acknowledgement that the floxed person has a physical problem. Conversely, many people diagnosed with fibromyalgia are really showing symptoms of a chronic intoxication caused by pharmaceutical drugs, environmental toxins or other factors.

Multiple sclerosis, Guilliam Barré Syndrome. These two illnesses are so similar in many aspects to the QTS (quinolone toxicity syndrome) that many floxed persons are tested for them as well as for myastenia gravis. Almost all floxed persons are tested to rule out multiple sclerosis. Myasthenia gravis is less often investigated in floxed persons because only severe floxings present with muscle wasting and only after some months, and muscle paralysis is normally not present unless the wasting is too high.

Other rheumatic diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, reactive arthritis like Reiter's or spondylitis). After a floxing, some blood tests can be abnormal, such as the sedimentation rate, the rheumatoid factor, the ANA titers, and others; inducing doctors to look deeper into these sets of illnesses.

Poly-myositis, dermatomyositis, inclusion body myositis. They are investigated when the floxed person presents with muscle weakness, pain or inflammation, skin eruptions, rashes, scaly skin or similar abnormalities, all of them due to the floxing.

Steven’s-Johnson syndrome. Hallgren et al reported ciprofloxacin-induced SJS in young patients in Sweden. It is a well-known illness caused by fluoroquinolones, and it is very disabling.

Serum sickness, giant cell sickness; it is well documented that cipro causes drug induced serum sickness.

Sjogren’s phenomena and syndrome; strikingly similar to floxing in so many aspects.

Raynaud's, a localized vascular disorder. Floxing causes a form of Raynaud's.

Small vessel vasculitis, because floxing exhibits a mixture of problems concerning small vessels and the intercelullar matrix.

Systemic lupus erythematosus, which many floxed persons are tested for.

Poly-neuropathy, mono-neuritis multiplex; in fact, many floxed persons have both during the evolution of their intoxication.

Sensory-motor neuropathies, present in all the severe cases of floxing.

Rhabdomyolysis, muscle destruction, with elevated CPK (creatine kinase) values. Mild forms of rhabdomyolysis are present in severe floxings, but tend to reverse at the 4-year mark or so.

Toxic syndromes and neuromuscular disorders, depending on the doctors (there are extraordinary similarities with intoxications of many kinds like fluorosis, exposure to solvents and pesticides, toxic oil syndrome, or multiple chemical sensitivity, as well as other disorders like gulf war syndrome, etcetera).

Lyme infection. Its symptoms are also very similar to those of a floxing.

In some cases, the quinolones do release true autoimmune responses, so they trigger or induce real rheumatic diseases, and do cause all the illnesses listed above (except lyme, obviously), as well as many others (see references at the end). But this report does not treat the quinolone induced rheumatic disorders.

Therefore, your doctor has to conduct an elimination process in order to discern and obtain a clear diagnosis. If you have a serious reaction, either bordering on clearly severe, and your body has withstood the aggression of the fluoroquinolones without launching a full blown rheumatic disease, your tests will probably show on some occasions:

That you have one or more autoimmune markers which are elevated, (ANA, rheumatoid factor, sedimentation rate ...) but only for some months.

That you do not show any abnormality in the electromyographic tests and conductivity tests at the beginning, but that you do later on.

That some of your blood tests show persistent alterations of liver and pancreas enzymes, elevated CPK or aldolase, bilirubin, etcetera.

That your symptoms and your pains point to neuromuscular involvement.

Then, it is likely that you end up being diagnosed as suffering from one or more of the following conditions:

Sensory-motor, autonomic, sensory peripheral neuropathy

Mono-neuritis multiplex, focal poly-neuropathy, especially axonal

Peripheral neuropathy, systemic neuropathy

Vasculitic neuropathy

Myositis, poly-myositis, myopathies of every sort

Myasthenic syndrome

Vasculitis, small vessel, reactive, toxic

Vasculitic myositis

Cardio-myopathy

Optic nerve myopathy, ischemic neuropathy

Connective tissue disorder

Tendinitis, tenosynovitis, enthesitis

Osteoarthritis, alteration in cartilages

Fibromyalgia

Leaky gut, malabsortion syndrome, candidiasis

Your doctor will not be prone to diagnose a floxing syndrome.

123. MAY I HAVE A PROPER DIAGNOSIS?

No, you cannot have a proper diagnosis until the medical class recognizes the extensive toxicity of the quinolones. With almost all doctors ignorant of critical data, either because of lack of adequate education in medical school or because of later being misinformed and misguided by the advertising reports or published articles paid for by -and sometimes directly written by- the manufacturers, you will not get the proper conclusion from them. Some very highly educated floxed persons, having a very distinctive healthy life prior to the floxing (which is well known to their doctors), are believed by their doctors. And, faced with the overwhelming evidence, their puzzled physicians admit that the antibiotic “has released or created a dormant autoimmune disorder that you already had”. Actually, you have a true fluoroquinolone toxicity and only an infinitesimal chance of being recognized as such. The problem is that things will not likely be oriented in the right direction by your doctor.

First of all, your doctor should report your adverse reaction to the FDA in detail. Secondly, he should ask the medical associations to which he belongs to produce more unbiased research on the toxicity of the fluoroquinolone antibiotics, and finally he should study it deeply himself. But more than a person you are a statistic, and everyday he sees many people less physically fit than you and probably with a much worse condition, even though some of them can have minor health problems but very “visible” and recognized by the medical class.

You will probably never be properly diagnosed due to the efforts of the drug manufacturers to hide, conceal and dismiss all the widespread, common and devastating injuries caused by thefluoroquinolones, and the passivity of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agency, that blindly believes that these reactions really amount to less than 2% of prescriptions (paradoxically the FDA officials admit that only ONE PERCENT of all adverse effects are reported).

Deprived of an accurate diagnosis, you will be classified within one of the regular, mainstream, common illnesses that doctors have heard of. And it will undoubtedly be a connective tissue disorder for a trained physician with a closed mind, or a mental psychotic or half-paranoid state if your doctor is too dumb.