Hi, my name’s Lee Ford and I’d like to tell you a story about my daughter, Charlie. 

At the age of 13 Charlie was given a medication called Levaquin.  It’s a fluoroquinolone antibiotic.  At the time it was used to treat a small infection that she had in her foot, after she’d had athlete’s foot.  We were told the medication was used all the time and safe. 

Charlie received the first dose [via] IV and within a day complained of her arms and legs feeling what she told me was “weird.”  Turns out that numbing and weakness and tingling in your extremities is a sign that your central nervous system is being attacked, but we were not advised of any of these symptoms, to watch for any of these symptoms or that this was a risk.  Charlie continued to take another six days of the medication orally, and within a week had a multitude of side effects:  extreme joint pain, to the point where she couldn’t barely move her arms or legs; nerve pain; headaches, debilitating headaches; anxiety; gastrointestinal issues; heart palpitations and chest pain.  ‘

I started to do the research and discovered that this drug had a black box warning with the FDA for permanent disabling side effects and that the drug packaging did not – indicated this only to be used as a last resort and in children only for kids that had the anthrax or the plague, which she did not. 

Charlie suffered tremendously.  She was one of the top swimmers in Canada for her age group and was on track for the Junior Olympics.  She wasn’t able to go to practice, let alone barely be able to make it to school because of the pain that she was experiencing and also the fatigue that she was experiencing. 

Our family went through a long journey of getting Charlie healed.  We saw so many doctors, so many emergency room visits, and it was so frustrating because most of the health professionals weren’t aware of the warning on this medication.  Most often it was just prescribe pain medication or oral steroids to try and deal with the pain and inflammation.  We chose not to go down this path just because on my readings I had read that that could actually make things worse. 

I connected with people on Facebook through fluoroquinolone toxicity and there were thousands and thousands of people that had been harmed in the same way, many of which that had actually committed suicide, which has subsequently become one of the warnings on the medication is that it seems to be linked to suicide.  And Charlie at the time was coming in with a lot of fear and anxiety, and I didn’t understand; I thought it was to do with the pain, but it turns out that that was a side effect of the medication.  And I relive that day that she got that medication over and over, and, you know, if I could go backwards and not let her have it, to have done more research, to have asked more questions, and to have known and been advised to stop it when she first started having side effects, it would have changed her life and our family’s lives.  It’s just been such a terrible impact, but all I can do now is learn from the experience and help others hopefully so that other families don’t go through the same thing. 

And you just need to assess everything that goes in or on your body; assess the risks; be informed; make sure you have informed consent; do your research.  There’s always a risk with anything that we take or put on us; we just have to weigh the benefits versus the risks and make a decision, an informed decision. 

Just know your risks.