I was young and foolish when I wrote my last post! It would've been so great to run or work out, or do anything. But, since that last post I have been consumed by pain caused by the Cipro. I've discovered another drug that I am allergic to.
Everything seemed fine with the Cipro, at first. The UTI cleared up within a few days, so I really thought my routine would start returning to normal.
On Wednesday, August 31, I went with a co-worker out to visit a customer. I dressed up for the visit, wearing a pair of dress shoes I wear once or twice a month. Usually I wear these shoes at work, where I'm walking on carpet. When we got to the customer's office, we walked a lot of sidewalks, moving between a couple different buildings. I didn't think anything of it at the time.
The next day my left foot was sore, which I attributed to the shoes. During the afternoon at work, my foot got so sore that I took my shoe off. My foot had swollen up pretty big, so I left my shoe off for the afternoon.
At the same time, I noticed my right shoulder was sore too. Thursday was a dialysis day, and I had my right arm resting on a pillow for four hours. My right arm was pointed in a 45 degree angle, so I wasn't surprised that it was stiff after dialysis was finished. What surprised me was how much it hurt a couple hours after dialysis was over.
By mid-afternoon I was limping around with a bum left foot and my right shoulder was sore to the touch. It seemed like I was falling apart.
Thursday night I soaked my foot and iced my shoulder, both of which provided some temporary relief. By the next morning my foot and shoulder were still sore. I had to wear my sandals to work, because I couldn't fit into any of my shoes. I kept icing my shoulder and I did my best to keep my foot elevated. Nothing seemed to be helping.
In a clear-headed moment, I wondered if there was a connection between the joint pain I was feeling and the Cipro. I did some searching and found some information that would support that. I know, using the internet for medical advice isn't the best way to go, but I wasn't looking for medical advice, as much as I was looking for anyone who had the same experiences.
I called Dr. Konigsberg to see if I could stop taking the Cipro. I spoke with a nurse, and she told me that what I was experiencing was not a typical reaction to the Cipro, but she said it was okay for me to stop taking it.
I made it through the day at work, but my foot was in a lot of pain by the time I got home. Jeannie suggested we got to the ER just to make sure there wasn't something else going on. Great, I thought. Friday night in the ER on Labor Day weekend. It should be an experience!
We got there around 7:45pm, and there was no one waiting ahead of me. In fact, the nurse was out to get me before we were done getting checked in. We went to Bergan which has become a bit of a second home for me, considering all the procedures and visits I've made there in the last year.
Once all my vitals were taken, a nurse practitioner came in to look at my foot. She ordered X-rays and a blood draw. The initial thought was gout. So, we hung out in the ER room. and I got my blood drawn and I got my foot X-rayed. While checking out my foot, the NP wasn't sure about the gout, because I only had pain in one part of my foot, and not the whole foot.
Since there wasn't going to be any magical cures coming from this visit, and since it didn't appear to be broken, the next step was to help me with the pain. I got a shot of morphine and Vicodin, which definitely took the edge off. Did I mention that I wasn't sleeping during the week? I was waking up after about four hours with a lower back pain that kept me awake the rest of the night. The morphine and Vicodin was going to get me some sleep that I dearly needed.
I was also given a prescription for Prednisone, which was supposed to help clear up whatever was trying to happen with my foot. All in all, it wasn't a terrible visit to the ER.
I took it easy over the long weekend, but the pain in my foot and my shoulder were still present. I only had to take the Prednisone for four days, and it was a relatively small dose. The only thing taking my mind off the pain was looking forward to getting my catheters out on Wednesday morning.
That event was the highlight of a very painful past few weeks. The catheters came out just fine, so that chapter in my dialysis treatment is closed.
Since Labor Day, I did some more searching on the internet and found that the pain I was experiencing was something that many other Cipro users experienced. In the posts I read, people were writing that the joint pain stuck around for months before clearing up.Yikes! Months sounded like a long time.
My pain has rotated between my knees and my calves. My foot pain has started to subside, to the point that I wore real shoes to work yesterday for the first time in several weeks. My shoulder is still sore, but some days it feels normal.
Dr. Frock said this wasn't an uncommon reaction and that it should pass. In the meantime, my white blood count rose up to 9, which is in the normal range, but higher than it's been since treatment. I called Dr. Tarantolo just to make sure this wasn't something we needed to react to. I talked to Darcy, one of the cancer nurses and she spoke with Dr. T. He wasn't concerned, and told Darcy to let me know that my body may take some time to get readjusted after taking the Cipro.
So, as I write this lengthy post, today's pain is in my calves. They are a little stiff, but not too bad. Considering I haven't been able to work out for over a month hasn't helped my body either. Jeannie and I resumed our walking this week, and even though it's slow going for me, I think it's helping.
For those of you following this blog, have you had any negative experience with Cipro? I don't wish this on anyone, but if you're willing to share, please leave a comment.
All of this serves as a reminder to me that I've got to find a living kidney donor!
