Antibiotic Toxicity - My Story

21/02/2018 I have never before had the desire to write a blog until now, because until now I had no idea what had happened to me.

My story starts in December 2015. I had recently come back to the UK from living in Australia for a year. Whilst out there I had been suffering from pain during intercourse and sent off with some antibiotics for suspected pelvic inflammatory disease and had a pap smear. The antibiotics made me feel instantly sick and had severe cramping, but other then that I didn't notice any severe side effects and awaited my results. My results came back saying I had level three abnormal cells, and I was told I had to go for treatment as soon as possible. I couldn't afford the treatment in Oz however, so I decided to fly home, get the treatment done there and then fly back out to Oz and continue my travels. Once home things happened quickly, I was sent off to have my dodgy cells lazered about mid Jan, which all went fine, although I noticed a slight infection happening about a week afterwards, for which I was given a second batch of antibiotics, again at the time I didn't notice any serious side effects, but nor can I really remember that clearly how they made me feel and also I had no idea at the time that antibiotics could even cause side effects, other then tiredness which I have always suffered from whilst taking them. I was, whilst all this was going on, given an appointment to examine the cause of the pain during intercourse with a doctor, I was examined and told the best thing to find out what was going wrong was an operation called a laparoscopy, which examines your insides essentially.

About 6 weeks later, in March 2016 I went in for my operation, I was a little bit nervous on going in, but I was hopeful that they could get to the route cause. I remember just before I went in to theater the anesthetist lent over me and told me that she would knock me out really deeply so that I don't feel a thing. And with that, I was out for the count. Two hours later I started to come round, but was in and out of consciousness for many hours afterwards, and the nurse kept coming in and telling me my blood pressure was too low. I'm guessing that's pretty normal for after an operation though. I was sent home with diuretics, because I was told I have a slow gut, even though I was pretty sure I was normal, I had incredibly regular bowel movements before the op, and after and I was given antibiotics as a precaution against infection. I don't really remember the week after too clearly other then being very tired, very inactive obviously, I'm pretty sure I stayed in bed mostly and slept a lot.

Now let me tell you a bit about myself before I continue. I have always been INCREDIBLY fit. I enjoy running, going to the gym, pole fitness, walking, I have always been incredibly slim and slender, I used to eat relatively well, although I did enjoy sugar and fast food more then I should have and I did smoke for 12 years prior but had given up at the time that this happened and I drank like any normal 25 year old. Occasionally on the weekends.

During the week after my operation, one thing I had noticed was that my anxiety (which I had been diagnosed with 2 years previously and only knew I even suffered from anxiety because my only symptom was that I couldn't regulate my breathing (I now suspect that might have been damage caused by antibiotics) other then that I didn't feel anxious at all, I had never had a panic attack, I didn't suffer from depression, sure I got sad like everyone, but I was a pretty ruthless and not a lot bothered me if I'm honest. My personality was quite cold, I didn't really empathize with people and I was selfish. Anyway, so a few days after the op my breathing started getting bad, like i couldn't catch my breath, but I thought nothing of it as I'd had it off and on for the past two years, we went for a meal for my birthday because I was well enough to get up and walk by that point and we came home, I slept like normal, but the next day my breathing was awful, I was a bit desperate by then so I listened to some meditation videos to help relax me, night time came and I still felt fine except the breathing and I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep and that's when it started.

A wave of adrenaline flooded through me, like I had never felt before, it spread through me from my legs through my body, like a cold wave and I started feeling really odd. I was trying to sleep but over and over this wave of adrenaline kept coming, every 10 seconds, constantly, I woke up my boyfriend and said something wasn't right, I was crying because I felt so horrific, like the worst fear in the world. It started freaking me out, was I going mad? What on earth was happening to me? I could not, for the life of me, control my body. I was shaking, I felt SO out of it, like I was in the world but I wasn't, everything was like looking through a piece of glass. My eyesight was destroyed, I had gone from perfect vision, to not being able to focus,like my eyes were seeing two different things constantly. I was hot all the time, no longer able to control my body temperature, and depressed like I had never felt before and still these waves of adrenaline kept coming. I could not sleep. I had severe insomnia, the waves of adrenaline would not let my body relax, I didn't sleep for two days straight which exacerbated things. The depression I felt was so severe. I could see no way out for myself. I was ready to die, I tried to kill myself twice in those first two days, but the only way my irrational brain could think to do it was to hold my breath until I passed out and hope that I would die that way. I barely slept for three weeks, I survived on a few hours here and there. I could concentrate on nothing. I barely ate, I had no appetite, and before food was my passion!! I could not read a book, I could not take in conversations, I could not even watch television. Everything that I did watch was too intense, everything I thought of became scary, because adrenaline was flooding me, so every memory I recalled was tainted by fear, everything I looked at was tainted by fear. EVERYTHING. All I could do to survive was lie down and try not to kill myself. And that took all of my strength I had no time for anything else. My thoughts we constant. Kill yourself, end it, end the misery, it is not worth feeling like this, fuck your family, if they could see what you were going through they would smoother you with a pillow to put you out of your misery anyway. Endlessly, relentlessly. Weeks turned in to months and things started to calm down, I was still suffering severe insomnia, I tried sleeping pills, they gave me the opposite effect, I tried herbal remedies, they gave me the opposite effect. Nothing worked. I was still suffering waves of adrenaline, but they too calmed down slightly. I still got panic attacks for no reason, and i couldn't watch films that were too intense, I couldn't handle any bad news, anything that made me feel bad, i was scared would trigger a panic attack. I went to my doctor at the beginning as asked do you think the operation could have caused this? He said yes, absolutely, but it should die down in a few months. I was sent off to therapy but it took six weeks to get an appointment and by that time I had begun to function semi-normally and I don't feel like it really helped me at all, more the fact that I was beginning to recover anyway. I was still out of it, I was very disassociated still but I was alive and able to run and get back in to activities, although nothing was the same as it had been before. I kept telling people, that it was like I was given a broken brain over night, that's the only way I can describe it. Like I had brain damage. Severe brain damage. All the time though my family were constantly telling me, you've had a mental breakdown, bad stuff has happened you recently, it's normal. And the whole time I was like, no I haven't, I felt that I had no reason to have a breakdown, yes sad things had happened, but I was dealing with them, they didn't effect me before, I was back to my normal selfish, cold life and I was damn happy with that. I had not had a mental breakdown, because certain things didn't trigger me, like with PTSD. I was triggered constantly. I felt that my symptoms were physical, which triggered the mental. Of course your going to cry, of course your going to want to kill yourself because your body is firing strong chemicals saying that something is not right, it is firing chemicals that tell you that you may be about to die, but slowly over time I began telling myself that maybe I had had a mental breakdown, which scared me no end, because I thought was going mad.

SO on I went with my life, trying to pick up the pieces, I felt no emotions to being with other then depression and fear, I did not feel love in the beginning and I did not feel happiness. I managed to move out of my mums house with my boyfriend at the time, and get a part time job, but at that point I was still very much struggling with panic attacks, insomnia and suicidal thoughts. I had to get the train to my job and every time fought the urge to throw myself in front of it. It was an urge that I could not control. I had to mentally stop myself from throwing myself on the tracks. I moved back to my mums house and eventually got another part time job in a school 5 days a week in Sept 16, 5 months after my initial breakdown, which I enjoyed. I loved my work colleagues, I liked my job, I was still suffering severe insomnia though, having one hours worth of sleep and night and then 7 the next, on and one like that it went for a year nearly but my condition was improving massively. I no longer suffered panic attacks really, and if I did they were few and far between, I still felt constantly anxious but nothing like before, the waves had nearly stopped, I still thought about killing myself regularly but I no longer listened to that voice, I didn't ever feel happiness like I had before or love, but I was making progress. One thing that did happen in that year was that I lost the ability to pop my ears, I got a cold, like any other cold, very snotty, which lasted a week and after that I could not pop them. Nothing I did equalized the pressure. I still cannot pop them a year and a half later which I find incredibly irritating. Of course I now know that damage can be caused and is commonly caused by Amoxicillin. Readily given out to fight kidney infections which I suffered from constantly as a young adult and which I have been given AT LEAST 15 times in my life time. I think my inner ear was damaged by the antibiotics and the cold caused them to block, possibly permanently. More on that later.

SO whilst at my new job I was taking up hobbies again, drawing, playing guitar, writing! Oh how I loved writing. I felt that good (In comparison to how I felt at the beginning of the breakdown, not before hand, I was still a long way off normality) that I applied to university and got accepted. I also took my maths GCSE which I had never gotten as a teenager, went a got my provisional license, went to a festival! which I never dreamed I'd be able to do and felt strong enough to break up with my boyfriend and started dating again.

Now. Here is where my story changes again. I had broken up with my boyfriend and was feeling sad, of course, that's natural, but very quickly after I started dating a new guy, who I really liked. We got on well. Whilst dating him I took emergency contraception, by the way I hadn't connected any of this at this point. I just thought maybe it was from the break up that my anxiety was flaring up, or maybe the stress of uni, which I was acing and loved because I had made so many new friends and getting firsts constantly! or the new relationship, which I was really enjoying, so I continued as normal, not really thinking much about it other then I'd had a few panic attacks randomly, for no reason, out walking the dog or lying down. Which hadn't happened in a long time and my pesky breathing was flaring up again. Quickly after that I ended up catching the flu and I was really, properly ill for a week but plodding along. Feeling OK, getting my uni assignments handed in, then I think I developed a sinus infection, I had head pressure and pain in my face, I felt very weak, like I could not walk or use my hands properly. And I was given Amoxicillin and a steroid which I remember being really hesitant to take, I waited for days before I took it. I felt better in some respects, but I was crying a lot around this time and having bad bad anxiety, to the point that my breathing was unbearable and I had to take two weeks off university. I then stupidly took the morning after pill again. Again I had not connected anything at this point, I had not looked at any side effects of any medication at all, because during my mental breakdown I refused to research anything, I could not look at side effects, they physically scared me, I was always scared that just reading them would make me get them, or would make me even more mad, and that was the main reason I abjectly REFUSED any antidepressants throughout my ordeal. I always used to suffer from side effects in the past, such as the sleeping pills, champex, that I once took to help give up smoking caused me to be suicidal etc, that I decided to just take, foolishly, what the doctor gave me.

I was feeling really bad at this point. It had been 3 weeks since getting over my sinus infection and two weeks since stopping antibiotics and a few days after taking the morning after pill and I could not stop crying and having panic attacks. I was seriously depressed again to the point where I was struggling to function. My sister came over and said, your having another break down, you need to go get help. I was like yup. I am. I have no idea why, and this time I will go to the doctor and I will get some medication and start therapy instantly. IDIOT. ONE OF THE WORST MISTAKES OF MY LIFE but by this point I was worried that I would have another full blown breakdown and that scared me more then anything. On 19th Dec off I went to the docs, crying, which is unfortunately the state my doctor sees me in most of the time these days. Poor man. I explained to him that I was crying all the time, the panic attacks were coming back, I had pressure in my head and headaches, I did not feel right. He gave me 10mg of Propranolol, a beta blocker which inhibits the release of adrenaline and another type of sleeping pill (which I threw away after trying one and staying up until 7am). My sleeping by this point had returned to normal by the way, for several months, I no longer struggle with sleep. TOUCH WOOD. I asked him specifically, will this give me side effects? Because he also knows I'm highly susceptible for some reason, he said it shouldn't do, they are safe, you won't get addicted, blah, blah, so off I go, I take my beta blockers and instantly I feel drugged up. Very mellow but also still able to feel anxiety. It was a weird experience. I took one a day when I was feeling really anxious and didn't think they were doing much. For the first week or two I was still struggling with my breathing, which the pills almost seemed to exacerbate and I was still having panic attacks. Everything was very intense too. But this side effect started gradually, almost so gradual that I barely noticed for a while. Id been on them for about a week and a half nearly two weeks maybe, it was around Christmas and I couldn't tolerate much, sound was too intense, colour was too intense, light was hurting my eyes, I was getting dizzy spells and I was feeling depressed and out of it, I was suffering for disassociation like I hadn't ever felt before. I knew I was in reality but I wasn't, it felt weird. I was at this point still going to work with my friend most days though, even though I was feeling weird. I was eating really well at this point too, so I think that I had lowered my blood pressure too much. My depression had got so severe by this point that I tried again to kill myself twice. I tried to give my self hypothermia by leaving my bedroom window open in the depths of winter and I stayed in the cold for hours until I felt my heart beat slow down and had a severe heart palpation which scared me enough to make me get warm, but I still tried the next day to kill myself in the same way. At this point though I was still able to get out of bed, and go to work, I was still working out on the pole outside and going for walks with my dog. I still had no idea at this point of the side effects of the beta blockers, I just thought I was loosing my mind. Around the same time, maybe a week or so later, I also developed a brutal wisdom tooth infection and I was prescribed 250mg Metronidazole AND 500mg Amoxocillin together. 3 times a day for a week. AND THAT IS WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED. On the first day of taking them I still went to work but I was feeling bad. Weird bad. I got home fell, asleep and woke up not being able to function as a human. I thought I was depressed before? That was nothing. I could not get out of bed. I cancelled work, I couldn't walk my dog, I could barely get up for food for myself. I was suicidal X 5. I thought something horrific was going to happen, every second I felt a sense of doom. I had NO memory, it was like trying to recall them was impossible, they were there, but they were grey, I struggled so hard to recall simple words, I tried to play my guitar and couldn't figure out my fingers, or remember the songs. I was mentally confused. Nothing made sense. I had splitting headaches and horrible pressure, I couldn't, at this point, feel anxiety due to the beta blockers, THANK GOD. I felt more out of it then ever. NOTHING made sense. The television was too much, the lights in the house were too much, I would wake up in the morning and feel ok and then as the day progressed start feeling weirder and weirder. My reflection was me, but I couldn't understand it. My eye sight AGAIN!! became blurry, which had never fully recovered from the first time, but now it was like I was severely short sighted, even the slightest strain to focus caused my eyes to stream, my eye balls hurt. Physically hurt. I was and still am sweating profusely, when I never sweat. At this point I STILL hadn't connected anything. I was still thinking, what the hell is going on with me, I have NEVER felt this before. Even after the first time. There were lots of similarities but the dizziness and severe disassociation were new as was this depression. It was another level. I couldn't feel anything other then fear, depression and doom. I went to see my therapist but it was too much, the room was too small, the yellow of the walls wasn't right, I didn't know who she was, even though I did. I sat thought an hour of hell. I stopped being able to go out, the thought of having to deal with so much stimulus with a brain that couldn't process it, or even see properly was too much. It still is too much.

Something in my brain finally clicked and I went to find my packet of beta blockers and i decided to read the leaflet that came with it. What I read filled me with horror. The side effects were dizziness, weakness, severe kidney pain, headache, double vision, mood changes, depression, being unable to distinguish between reality and your imagination, delusions, heart palpatations (I've since found out suicide rates are high amongst people using the drug). I stopped taking it immediately. I didn't wean myself off, I stopped there and then. I then decided to research the metronidazole, and honestly wasn't expecting to find anything because I've always thought of antibiotics as safe drugs and that when I read the side effects from those. Dizziness, fatigue, headaches, depression, mood changes, suicidal tendencies, blurred vision, pain in eyes, confusion, memory loss. I was suffering from all of them and whats worse is both medications gave me the same side effects. So I have essentially been poisoned by both! I was so thankful that I had the foresight to look up the side effects, because I was ready to kill myself. Whilst looking for Metronidazole side effects I stumbled upon a girls post by the name of metro girl and began to read her story to see if there was anything i could do to help myself and I could not believe what I read. She said that she had been given metronidazole and listed her symptoms as everything I had experienced two years ago. EVERYTHING. Which of course made me do more research to see if others had had the same. I discovered thousands of stories just like my own. Not just from people but hundreds of medical websites that state the damage that be caused by them. What I also discovered is that there is a very strong chance that you will recover, but it can take a long, long time of being incredibly kind to yourself and eat right, you also may never fully recover but the symptoms will improve with time, just like they did for me the first time. I didn't start this research to potentially find a cause for my breakdown in the first place, I did research to help me now, but I'm grateful that I'm now certain that I've got an answer.

Just know that you are not alone. Your symptoms are very real. Just type in antibiotics side effects and a whole world will open up to you, mainly a lot of medical literature, so you know that at least some people are aware. I have also learnt that antibiotics damage you on a DNA level, they damage everything about you, not just your gut bacteria. People will tell you its all in your head and offer you advice, they are only trying to help but it can be frustrating to hear. My symptoms are very real. Dizziness is not a cause of depression and anxiety. Inner ear damage is not a cause of depression and anxiety. Blurred vision is not a cause of depression and anxiety. Adrenaline shooting through your body 24/7 is not a sign of normal anxiety and depression. That is damage to your brain and intestines. But it does get better. I have also discovered that a lot of people get delayed reactions sometimes weeks or months after the event which is why people so frequently dismiss it as a mental breakdown. I believe you because it happened to me before and now its's happening again. There is no short term solution but be kind to your self. Stay away from sugar and refined carbs, drink plenty of water, don't push yourself, don't get angry at yourself. It is not your fault. You are just very unlucky.

Here are some of the links I found useful although I didn't really do that much in depth research online, mainly because I didn't want to read any horror stories. There are plenty of stories out there though that have a lot more scientific evidence to back them up, unfortunately I don't know enough about the reasons why it happens particularly other then some people are just more susceptible . I hope whoever reads this knows they are not alone.

Metrogirl. Really interesting post. read the whole website:

https://metrogirlblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/from-a-patients-perspective/

Side effects from Metronidazole

https://www.drugs.com/sfx/metronidazole-side-effects.html

Side effects from Amoxicillin https://www.drugs.com/sfx/amoxicillin-side-effects.html

side effects from Propranolol

https://www.drugs.com/sfx/propranolol-side-effects.html

Side effects from common antibiotics British journal of clinical pharmacology

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175508/