The doctor gently poked, prodded, looked, and listened, and determined that I needed Big Guns. And by Big Guns, I mean really heavy-duty antibiotics. This was not good news for me, because I am allergic to - are you ready for this? - penicillin (and all derivaties thereof), sulfa drugs (and all derivatives thereof), and doxycycline (and likely all tetracycline drivatives as well). Modern medicine and its bid for new antibiotics has not been much of a boon for me, save for what my doc refers to as vitamin Z, azythromycin.
But judging by my fever and the narstiness accumulated in my nose and chest, a Z-pack wasn't going to cut it. So I got Levaquin, which was described as well-tolerated by the doc. I read about it, and holy fucking fuckers who fuck, the side effects sheet covers pretty much anything bad that can happen to your body, from the run-of-the-mill diarrhea to insomnia to suicidal thoughts to hallucinations to heart failure to liver failure to renal failure to spontaneously rupturing tendons - achilles and anything else - to numbness, tingling, and/or tremors in your extremities to hypoglycemia.
Seriously.
So I called back, and I was like "DUDE!! Wtf?" (Just with a stuffed nose and with a lot less energy.) The pharmacist said the worst side effect is paranoia from reading the insert (har har, I thought... what a joker), and the doctor said that it really is very well-tolerated for the most part. So after whinging and moaning to Danny, my mom, and my dad, and being a huge paranoid baby about the whole thing - I'm blaming my illness - I took my giant 750 mg horse pill, and prayed that my head wouldn't spontaneously blow off my shoulders because if it did, then that's one more horrific thing they'll have to write on the insert.
It didn't. The worst that happened was at 1 AM, I had to bolt to the toilet. I sat there feeling like my insides were about to explode (I admit I was pleased it wasn't my head), and praying that becasue I was sitting on the toilet, my insides wouldn't choose to explode out my mouth. But everything was under control, and aside from the gastrointestinal fireworks, I got an excruciating case of cotton mouth and insomnia that lasted until 4 AM.
Which, when compared to the terrible things on the insert, was not bad. (I half expected my spleen to exit my bellybutton, do a little ad-libbed soft shoe, recite some dirty limericks, and inform me it would be taking up residence in a locale far more exotic than my abdominal cavity. I am quite pleased to report it is still in its proper place.)
However, I still called the next day to see if the cotton mouth, insomnia, etc. could be fixed, and I was told to cut my pills and take 2/3 of one every day until they were all gone. I am happy to report that aside from ocasional feelings of extremely friendly silliness (which I am totally chalking up to the medication - I'm silly naturally, but believe me it's more than usual), I can take this antibiotic!
Actually, despite all my hypochondriac tendencies and resistance to taking the damn pills, it's been sort of a comfort. Levaquin is a seriously heavy hitter. It's what they give people who've been exposed to anthrax, and it's always been a back-of-the-head idle concern of mine about what would happen if I was exposed, given that so many antibiotics are out of the question for me. I loved the time I lived in NYC, and even though I hate it, I still have to live in the DC metro area. Both are large metropolitan regions that are prime targets for terrorists, biological weapons, etc. and I want to move back to NYC the first chance I get... again, putting myself in a position where if there was a serious attack and people got exposed to anthrax, I'd likely be one of them. So, you know, here's one less thing I'm even minorly worried about.
And I'm feeling better. And my head hasn't spontaneously blown off my shoulders! What a bonus.
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