Stay Calm: You're Fine

[FabulousOne]

Keep cool.
Have a deep breath.
Repeat after me : I. Am. Fine.
Brisk reflexes are not indicative of something per se, ask on this forum, many people have them.
The main point is : you'be been twitching for 5 years. You had two clean EMGs. You have no objective weakness. You are 26 years old. You're fine, period. Stop doing research on als, it will only increase your anxiety which, obviously, is your main concern here.

Fabrice[/i]

 

[joeyate1]

my friend if you had als you'd be long dead. whats freaking all out on these boards is this jsutt won't go away so something msut be wrong.no questiuon its depressing thinking this will last till we die. the busier one keeps the less you notice twitches

 

[ydav3yat3s]

Curious... Did you take lariam by any chance? I had a bad reaction to Lariam which triggered my chronic fatigue syndrome. several months later i started twitching.

Otherwise... at five years, two negative EMGs, if you've got something killing you at that rate you'll die of something else much sooner.

all joking aside, you'd be a freak if you turned out to have it. but i don't blame you, i'm six years into this and still wondering sometimes.

 

[ydav3yat3s]

Garym,

Thanks, didn't know that. I've read the complaints about Cipro (which I also took about the same time, six months before twitching), but for sure the Lariam problems far outweigh the Cipro problems... I had a psychotic reaction to it, people are committing suicide and killing their wives because of this drug. The nightmares I had on Lariam were murderous and grisly (have never had them before or after Lariam). I have plenty of friends who reacted very badly to Lariam too. Believe me, Cipro may have bad side effects but Lariam is in a class by itself. Literally.

Lariam is an evil, evil drug. I wondered about this poster because it's also used to cure malaria, not just a profylactic.

 

[garymills]

I contracted Malaria while i was serving in East Timor with the Australian Army. We took daily doses of Doxycycline and weekly doses of Chloriquine. (not sure of the medication spellings) I cant remember the name of the drug used to cure it but im positive it wasnt larium. Thanks for your replys. )

 

[ydav3yat3s]

Siam,

You need to take a look at the chloroquine, as it is in the quinoline family of drugs much like larium. The quinolone and quinoline family of drugs have well documented adverse effects on the human body. Do a google search on Larium and you will find many sites dealing with these reactions. Here are a couple of links:



Dave y,

I wouldn't say that the larium reactions far outweigh the quinolone reactions. In fact, every single reported adr to larium has been reported to quinolones including the psychotic episodes you mention and suicides. Last year, one of the members of the quinolone board I belong to actually commited suicide. It is so tragic that these drugs have such negative consequences that remain unpublicized. At the same time, I realize they are medically necessary in some cases. But at any rate, the Larium has just received more media attention. Not because the reaction is worse, but rather because of the problems with our armed forces. If a couple of cipro (or other quinolone) victims go home and kill their wives, it makes the local news. If a couple of soldiers on the same base kill their wives, it makes the national news.

By the way, larium is not a "flouro" as I stated earlier. One is a quinolone (cipro, levaquin, tequin, amicrobin, floxin, etc.) and the other is a quinoline (larium).

Since you took both a quinolone and quinoline at about the same time, if you want some additional info on the cipro let me know.

Take care,

Gary

 

[garymills]

Thanks Gary,

I dunno... I don't mean to raise this beyond cordial debate, but I still think Lariam is more dangerous. On my last trip to Africa (Tanzania), where I had my problem, more than half the people I encountered taking lariam were having strange reactions. The pharmacists there (one of them I stumbled up on happened to be a boyhood friend from when I lived there as a kid) said they won't even handle it anymore because of the problems. --a shabby, dirty pharmacy in Arusha wouldn't handle an exclusive drug aimed at their only wealthy clients, tourists. Hotel managers are complaining about having to evacuate guests "all the time" as one told me, shortly after he'd found a guest wandering around the lobby--naked.

The reason I don't think it's as widespread is because Cipro is used quite a bit in the US and Lariam isn't, and if there were as many problems with it as they are having with Lariam in Africa, it would be all over the news. Doctors, including my previous one in CA, don't know about Lariam's reputation in the rest of the world. For example, when the Anthrax scare completely depleted Cipro supplies and hundreds of thousands of Americans started taking it, if it had been Lariam, there would have been an epidemic of stuff never seen before in the US. There would have been a lot of news about it.

I'm not arguing that Cipro doesn't have side effects, I believe it does--I believe the scope of the Lariam problem is huge among those who take it. I believe if the problems were as widespread as Lariam there would be much, much more news about it.

I have often wondered if Lariam or Cipro caused my twitching, though it began about eight months after I took them... so it's a tough connection to make.