Linda’s comments: Linda’s comment:  This is the reasons why I try and guide people to make their own healthcare choices and learn all they can about holistic/alternative medicine….There are wayyyyyyyyyy to many folks with Lyme disease who are given these products…..<sigh>

link: http://www.medicationsense.com/fluoroquinolone.html 

Excerpt:

Levaquin and Cipro Reactions

In 2001, Dr. Jay S. Cohen published a ground-breaking article* on the severe and often disabling reactions some people sustained while taking Levaquin, Cipro, or another FQ antibiotic. Dr. Cohen says, “It is difficult to describe the severity of these reactions. They are devastating. Many of the people in my study were healthy before their reactions. Some were high intensity athletes. Suddenly they were disabled, in terrible pain, unable to work, walk, or sleep.” 
The 45 subjects in Dr. Cohen’s study reported the following side effects*.

Peripheral Nervous System

: Tingling, numbness, prickling, burning pain, pins/needles sensation, electrical or shooting pain, skin crawling, sensation, hyperesthesia, hypoesthesia, allodynia (sensitivity to touch), numbness, weakness, twitching, tremors, spasms.

Central Nervous System:

 

Dizziness, malaise, weakness, impaired coordination, nightmares, insomnia, headaches, agitation, anxiety, panic attacks, disorientation, impaired concentration or memory, confusion, depersonalization, hallucinations, psychoses.

Linda’s comment:  FINALLY a doctor that gets it…..

Excerpt:

Today, clinicians have major concerns with Toxic Body Burden, consisting of toxic heavy metals, pesticides, volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) and pathogen load, and how these poisons adversely affect the nutritional status of their patients. A particularly critical example of the interference of toxins with nutritional status and biochemical function is the competitive aspect of Mercury and Magnesium.     

Mercury, Magnesium and Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)

Mercury specifically competes with Magnesium and interferes with all Magnesium-dependent metabolic pathways, such as production of energy from ATP and GTP, which directly leads to lack of chemical energy. Every cell in the body requires chemical energy derived from ATP or GTP to function, heal and regenerate. Adenosine-5′-triphosphate (ATP) is a multifunctional nucleotide that is critical as the “molecular currency” of intracellular energy transfer. In this role, ATP transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism. It is produced as an energy source during the processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration and consumed by many enzymes and a multitude of cellular processes, including biosynthetic reactions, motility and cell division. In signal transduction pathways, ATP is used as a substrate by kinases that phosphorylate proteins and lipids, as well as by adenylate cyclase, which uses ATP to produce the second messenger molecule cyclic AMP. If Mercury is present, this cannot occur.

Linda’s comment:  I suggest you copy and paste this and/or print out and take to your doctors or any healthcare practitioners and make sure they are recording things properly in your charts.  When you know your symptoms are attributed to Lyme disease, make sure this is noted.

In general, social security does not make decisions on a diagnosis, but on the restrictions and functional limitations a person has that results on their inability to work based on any training, education and experience the person had in the past.
 
Because Lyme disease is not listed in the “blue book”, it is even more important for those with Lyme disease to do the following.
Make sure all treating physicians understand the importance of documenting actual functional limitations in the actual patient notes.
 
Many physicians actually write “non-descriptive” patient notes which later are determined to be useless for SSDI purposes.
 
If a Lyme patient is suffering from neurological deficits that result in loss of balance and coordination, this should be clearly indicated in the patient record as attributable to Lyme disease.