Aurélie P.’s life took an unexpected turn on June 17, 2010, just 20 minutes after swallowing her Tavanic tablets, an antibiotic that her ENT doctor had just prescribed in hopes of treating her recurring ear and sinus infections. That day, the otolaryngologist prescribed “double the recommended dose, without prior notice,” recalls this lawyer near Chartres (Eure-et-Loir).
“There was a before and after. I had a second life after that date,” says this 42-year-old woman, who has since unleashed “a battery of serious health problems, both neurological and hematological, that continue to this day. being misunderstood.” by the best specialists of the APHP”.
This week, a dozen patients should present a series of complaints in Paris for “involuntary injuries” allegedly caused by powerful antibiotics prescribed without authorization. Like Aurélie, these patients report suffering “sometimes serious and potentially irreversible adverse effects” from taking fluoroquinolone antibiotics. The forty-year-old now hopes to be able to file a complaint, initiated by Philippe Coville.
“Statistically impossible to be so unlucky”
On June 17, 2020, Aurélie recalls that she was at her workplace when she had “pretty impressive nausea and dizziness”, to the point of having to go home. “Then it only got worse, the next night was terrible, with excruciating burns all over the tendons, that we could have cooked an egg on,” she says.
Week after week, things go from bad to worse for Aurélie, who has never had any health problems before. Headaches, tendon burns, tinnitus, diplopia, confusion, weight loss… the beginning of a long ordeal for the young woman, who will not be able to set foot on the ground for almost two years.
Today, the 40-year-old is barely walking again. “The best thing I can do is take a quiet walk for an hour,” testifies this woman, who had to stop working due to her health. To date, she oscillates between periods of stability and crises of excruciating pain.
After two meningitis in 2014 and 2016, he has since been diagnosed with monoclonal gammopathy. “It is statistically impossible to be so unlucky,” she says, totally devastated by these years of suffering.
A single Tavanic tablet, taken in April 2021 for suspected epididymitis, was enough to put Amaury through hell. “I quickly understood that there was a problem because the next day I felt enormous abnormal pain in my tendons: shoulders, knees, elbows, wrists, Achilles tendons. I had never had anything comparable before,” explains the 31-year-old. , who describes “electrical discharges at the slightest movement”.
A foggy and heavy daily life
Two days later, Amaury was unable to walk either. “I spent three excruciating months, going from my bed to my desk. He was shitting and no medical professional was able to tell what he had. They didn’t believe me, or they said it was in my head”, says this young woman. businessman, who lives in Paris.
For six months, Amaury manages to walk again, but never more than 5,000 steps a day, under pain of excruciating pain. Difficult situation for this former athlete in good health, who practiced almost 15 hours of tennis a week.
“This loss of autonomy was very hard, even at the level of my partner. For months I couldn’t do anything: not go to the weekend with my girlfriend, not go shopping, not even walk the dog… It was very heavy for my partner”.
But after long months of lethargy and despair, the young man is just beginning to resume a semblance of a normal life, thanks to a new way of life that he adopted following the advice of other victims of fluoroquinolones. If the pains are always present on a daily basis, “at the slightest unusual movement”, they are sometimes less intense and remain controllable. A year ago, Amaury stopped consuming tap water, became a vegetarian, no longer eats gluten and takes a whole battery of food supplements.
“Is that why it has improved? Maybe, but I’m not sure. We navigate a bit by sight, empirically,” says the thirty-something Parisian, who assures that “you have to be psychologically strong so you don’t have dark thoughts because You are like a prisoner of your own body.”
“He stole my life!”
The case of Cécile G. is perhaps one of the most serious known in France. After a dental operation, Cécile contracts a urinary infection for which her doctor prescribes fluoroquinolones: the beginning of “a descent into hell” for this 45-year-old woman.
After taking the twenty pills prescribed to him, he suffered generalized inflammation with multiple damage to the tendons and edema in the lower limbs. At that time, she could no longer walk and she spent most of her time bedridden or in a wheelchair for several months. Kidney, bone and muscle pain, partial loss of sight, neuropathy, difficulty breathing… her quality of life is greatly diminished by a myriad of symptoms.
“I can’t sleep anymore because the pain is so unbearable, and I can’t eat anymore because eating or drinking becomes torture and the generalized inflammation revives. I lost ten pounds in a few days,” Vendée says on BFMTV.com.
After several months of bed rest, as he gradually regained his physical abilities, he relapsed severely after the use of fluoride-containing dental materials. Because fluoroquinolone is attached to the fluorine atom, many victims of fluoroquinolones relapse after fluoride exposure.
But “the most devastating consequence”, for Cécile, remains the development of mast cell activation syndrome (MASA). An immunological pathology that causes exacerbated allergies to certain foods, certain medications, but above all to dental care. Since then, she must be accompanied at all times by an electric acupuncture pen (Acupen) in case of anaphylactic shock.
“Before this intake of fluoroquinolones, I never had any allergic reactions and I didn’t even know such an extreme level could exist. Many times I thought I lived my last hours. My reactions are brutal, violent and life-threatening.”
“I should never have been prescribed this antibiotic”
At 45 years old, this woman has already lost a dozen teeth and a large part of her jaw (see photo). And for good reason, she is now unable to perform the dental reconstruction that she would need, given the significant allergic terrain that she presents. A situation that generates many complications (subsidence, dislocations, fusion of the jaw bones, chewing problems and occlusions) that may force you to resort to other dental extractions.
His body no longer supports most dental materials, now he has no choice but to travel 1000 km to seek treatment at the other end of France. A strong technical restriction, but also financial.
“How can a widely prescribed antibiotic cause so much damage?” he asks again. “This antibiotic should never have been prescribed to me given my medical history,” she specifies this Vendée. Today, in a situation of therapeutic impasse, she intends to file a complaint.
“This intake of fluoroquinolones stole my life! Despite all these difficulties, being quite optimistic by nature, I often forced myself to go ahead and fight, but today in a strong depression because I see no way out, I am losing hope and I fear for my life.” Today I don’t call it life, I survive and try to get out of it however I can”, says Cécile, who says to herself at the same time “exhausted, disappointed and terrified”.
Too many recipes “by force of habit”
Fluoroquinolones “are a class of antibiotics that can be used during serious bacterial infections,” the National Agency for Medicines Safety (ANSM) indicates on its website, which recalls that “like any medication, fluoroquinolones can cause adverse effects.”
“Any medication taking involves risks, it’s true,” Professor Mathieu Molimard reminds BFMTV.com. However, “a physician must constantly juggle the benefits and risks for any given patient.” However, in the case of fluoroquinolones, “they are still overprescribed by first intention in France”, while the European Medicines Agency reassessed their benefit/risk ratio in 2018 and restricted their therapeutic indications.
Thus, for Professor Mathieu Molimard, “it is not a question of banning fluoroquinolones, but of adding additional restrictions to doctors so that they stop prescribing them too easily at first, simply out of force of habit.”
“These are drugs that penetrate tissues very well, so they are very effective. But they are not without risk, far from it. For this reason, they should only be used when there is no other option”, explains this professor at the University Hospital of Bordeaux, who is also responsible for communication for the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (SFPT).
The Ministry of Health, for its part, indicates that it has requested that a prevention message appear in the prescription assistance software, and has published a thematic sheet on the subject on the website of the National Agency for Medicine Safety ( ANSM).
Source: BFM TV
