Action 9: Patients who say they suffered ‘floxing’ praise new medical decision

CHARLOTTE — Lauren Saikkonen says she “can still remember the day that the bomb went off.” She took a common antibiotic and believes it changed her life forever. Now, a new global tracking system is being hailed as a game changer for people like her.

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She says she took fluoroquinolones and is now convinced that was the culprit.

“Extreme paralyzing crippling fatigue was the main issue,” she told Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke. “It feels like razor blades in my hands and my feet.”

Fluoroquinolones are common antibiotics and can be very effective fighting infections.

Popular brand names include Avelox, Cipro, and Levaquin.

But some patients say they had devastating side effects. So much so, there’s now a term for this: “floxing.”

Stoogenke has been covering these concerns for a decade.

As time passed, the FDA required more and more warnings on the meds. Side effects could include ruptured tendons, nerve damage, heart issues, and problems with the main artery in your body.

Now, there’s a new system to formally track adverse reactions and advocates are considering this new development a game changer for everyone: New codes specifically for fluoroquinolone poisoning.

The way the World Health Organization puts it, medical codes create a “common language for recording, reporting and monitoring diseases.

This allows the world to compare and share data in a consistent and standard way – between hospitals, regions and countries and over periods of time."

It’s an even bigger deal because it can help patients with prevention, treatment, health insurance claims, disability coverage, and more.

“We can finally be diagnosed with what we are sick with, what injured us,” Saikkonen said. “There can be formal tracking of the real numbers. How many people are injured.”

The FDA has said the drugs can be good for severe infections but that the potential dangers outweigh the benefits for people with less serious ones, including sinus infections, bronchitis, and some UTIs.

A lot of companies make these drugs. Stoogenke has exchanged emails with them in the past and their general position has been: The antibiotics can be very effective -- even life-saving -- when used on the right patient.

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