Sign-in to Ask A Doctor - 24x7
OR
Sign in with Google
Is Ciprofloxacin Safe To Be Taken For Stomach Infection?
Question: My doctor put me on ciprofloxacin for 10 days at 500 mg twice daily for a stomach infection. I felt much better after using it 3 days.On the night of the 5th day (had taken 10 pills by then) I started to read the horrific stories about cipro and I stopped using it.I saw there were so many who took cipro who had to stop using it because they were in pain ,particularly in their tendons. I quit because I got scared.I took my last cipro pill 4 days ago and other than dry mouth (which seems to be getting better) I havent noticed any side affects from cipro . In fact I was mentioning to a friend that the cipro seemed to knock out the infection and the aches and pains I had been experiencing ,especially in my legs, and that they were largely gone.So I feel pretty good but is there any reason to believe that cipro will have a delayed effect over the next several days and weeks? If i had never read the bad stories about cipro I would be feeling good but now I cant get it out of my head about cipro having delayed effects that have crippled people.Part of what keeps me worried is that I have garden variety aches and pains and a bit of chronic fatigue that comes and goes.So when you feel a twinge somewhere (like in my feet or hands which tend to be a little stiff) you start to think is that a regular pain or cipro?
Brief Answer:
That side effect is very very rare and very likely you are going to be fine
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Thank you for asking at healthcaremagic.
I carefully read your question and understand your concern.
Ciprofloxacine is a drug that is used a lot for urinary and for bowel infection and as any other medication has its side effects. but generally patients tolerate it well as it has happened in your case. The side effect you mention is one that few patient experience but this is very rare and in my experience of 13 years working as a primary care physician and prescribing it regularly for these infections i have not had one case that had complained about joint or tendon problems due to it.
Every medication if you read the side effects in the letter in the box of the medication you will be so surprised with the huge list of the side effects and the reason is because there is written any possible side effect no matter how rare it is.
Paracetamol (tylenol) for example i was surprised as a student when i first started to study it how come that is a very commonly used drug with such a huge list of side effects? The answer i learned later and is because those side effects are potential side effects and in reality are very rare.
It is the same with ciprofloxacine. There are many cases reported all over the world but the frequency of them is so rare that it is very unlikely you will have an issue with it.
I would say just relax, very likely you will be doing fine and there is nothing to worry, chances work more on your favor than against you.
I hope this is helpful and answers to your question but please feel free to reply if there is a need for more clarification on this.
Kind regards,
Antoneta Zotaj, MD
That side effect is very very rare and very likely you are going to be fine
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Thank you for asking at healthcaremagic.
I carefully read your question and understand your concern.
Ciprofloxacine is a drug that is used a lot for urinary and for bowel infection and as any other medication has its side effects. but generally patients tolerate it well as it has happened in your case. The side effect you mention is one that few patient experience but this is very rare and in my experience of 13 years working as a primary care physician and prescribing it regularly for these infections i have not had one case that had complained about joint or tendon problems due to it.
Every medication if you read the side effects in the letter in the box of the medication you will be so surprised with the huge list of the side effects and the reason is because there is written any possible side effect no matter how rare it is.
Paracetamol (tylenol) for example i was surprised as a student when i first started to study it how come that is a very commonly used drug with such a huge list of side effects? The answer i learned later and is because those side effects are potential side effects and in reality are very rare.
It is the same with ciprofloxacine. There are many cases reported all over the world but the frequency of them is so rare that it is very unlikely you will have an issue with it.
I would say just relax, very likely you will be doing fine and there is nothing to worry, chances work more on your favor than against you.
I hope this is helpful and answers to your question but please feel free to reply if there is a need for more clarification on this.
Kind regards,
Antoneta Zotaj, MD
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Prasad
One more thing.Along with my stomach infection i developed constipation and a large hemorrhoid.My doctor put me on hydrocortisone suppositories which did help a lot but i have read that using such steroids with cipro makes it more likely that you will get cipro toxicity that can attach your body and tendons.
A large part of what makes me nervous now is that 5 years ago I had a horrendous experience with the drug reglan which took almost 5 months to get over.Cipro is a different drug I know but it turns out I am allergic to regland and neuroleptics and I had terrible akathisia. I am worried maybe I have a weakness that would allow cipro to get me later on.The one thing I can say about the reglan is that there were signs that it was effecting me badly while I was taking it before I fully got akathisia.
Does cipro have neurological affects?The one from regland were very bad butI was able to see a psychiatrist and he gave me prozac and my akathisia eventually went away.
I have one more thing to ask.I play golf which tends to put a strain on my neck , hands and legs and it feels like arthritus and i will take something like tylenol or some an nsaid for the pain.Should i avoid exercise like this for awhile so I wont hurt a tendon?Should i stop taking nasaids for a long time since supposedly it reacts badly with cipro.Tylenol I believe is not an nasaid.
Patient Says: The strangest part of this is that I am worried about delayed affects of cipro but before i took it and i had the stomach infection i told a friend I felt like i had fibromyalgia with pains all over , particularly in my legs .Now i actually feel better than normal and i am getting around better than I usually do and my legs feel good .I would just hate to think this could all backfire weeks or months from now .
BTW is 5 days a long time to take cipro?On the internet they make it seem like 2 or 3 days is a long time. To compare I had my problems with reglan after taking it for 35 days,although I did notice some problems earlier.
A large part of what makes me nervous now is that 5 years ago I had a horrendous experience with the drug reglan which took almost 5 months to get over.Cipro is a different drug I know but it turns out I am allergic to regland and neuroleptics and I had terrible akathisia. I am worried maybe I have a weakness that would allow cipro to get me later on.The one thing I can say about the reglan is that there were signs that it was effecting me badly while I was taking it before I fully got akathisia.
Does cipro have neurological affects?The one from regland were very bad butI was able to see a psychiatrist and he gave me prozac and my akathisia eventually went away.
I have one more thing to ask.I play golf which tends to put a strain on my neck , hands and legs and it feels like arthritus and i will take something like tylenol or some an nsaid for the pain.Should i avoid exercise like this for awhile so I wont hurt a tendon?Should i stop taking nasaids for a long time since supposedly it reacts badly with cipro.Tylenol I believe is not an nasaid.
Patient Says: The strangest part of this is that I am worried about delayed affects of cipro but before i took it and i had the stomach infection i told a friend I felt like i had fibromyalgia with pains all over , particularly in my legs .Now i actually feel better than normal and i am getting around better than I usually do and my legs feel good .I would just hate to think this could all backfire weeks or months from now .
BTW is 5 days a long time to take cipro?On the internet they make it seem like 2 or 3 days is a long time. To compare I had my problems with reglan after taking it for 35 days,although I did notice some problems earlier.
Brief Answer:
Answers for the questions provided- please relax, you don't need to worry
Detailed Answer:
Hello again,
I carefully read your question and understand your concerns.
Very likely all the ciprofloxacine you got is out of your body at the moment and no risk of the ones mentioned above is really going to affect you.
Cipro with steroid suppositories do not cause any interactions with one another and no problem will be due to this.
I understand the issues you had with reglan as it really can affect the central nervous system and is a very serious side effect it might cause, especially combined with some other drugs that affect the central nervous system but cipro is not known to have similar side effects and i dont expect you to develop symptoms that relate to central nervous system.
Even the interactions with NSAID-s is not serious and nothing to worry. Tylenol is not NSAID, you are right.
It is advisable that before any exercise that might cause strain on muscles you first have some warming up exercises to prepare them for what is going to happen. I dont think the neck, arm and leg pains will be worse due to ciprofloxacine.
5 days with cipro is not a long time, sometimes we might prescribe it for 10-14 days especially for kidney infection and almost all the time i have prescribed it this long, it is well tolerated by the patients. In prostatitis we can even prescribe it for several weeks and still is ok.
As i mentioned ciprofloxacine is generally well tolerated and the side effects you mention are very rare and chances are that you will not have any issues in the future. Just relax and enjoy. Sometimes worrying too much for things might cause your body to produce pains that we call neurological pain and than it is hard to make the difference between what is really due to structural causes and what is due to stress.
I hope this will answer to your question and will be helpful to you but please feel free to reply in case more clarification is needed on this.
Kind regards
Antoneta Zotaj, MD
Answers for the questions provided- please relax, you don't need to worry
Detailed Answer:
Hello again,
I carefully read your question and understand your concerns.
Very likely all the ciprofloxacine you got is out of your body at the moment and no risk of the ones mentioned above is really going to affect you.
Cipro with steroid suppositories do not cause any interactions with one another and no problem will be due to this.
I understand the issues you had with reglan as it really can affect the central nervous system and is a very serious side effect it might cause, especially combined with some other drugs that affect the central nervous system but cipro is not known to have similar side effects and i dont expect you to develop symptoms that relate to central nervous system.
Even the interactions with NSAID-s is not serious and nothing to worry. Tylenol is not NSAID, you are right.
It is advisable that before any exercise that might cause strain on muscles you first have some warming up exercises to prepare them for what is going to happen. I dont think the neck, arm and leg pains will be worse due to ciprofloxacine.
5 days with cipro is not a long time, sometimes we might prescribe it for 10-14 days especially for kidney infection and almost all the time i have prescribed it this long, it is well tolerated by the patients. In prostatitis we can even prescribe it for several weeks and still is ok.
As i mentioned ciprofloxacine is generally well tolerated and the side effects you mention are very rare and chances are that you will not have any issues in the future. Just relax and enjoy. Sometimes worrying too much for things might cause your body to produce pains that we call neurological pain and than it is hard to make the difference between what is really due to structural causes and what is due to stress.
I hope this will answer to your question and will be helpful to you but please feel free to reply in case more clarification is needed on this.
Kind regards
Antoneta Zotaj, MD
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Prasad
Thank you for all your help One more thing.I took the cipro for 5 days for the stomach infection then stopped.For the last 5 days I have taken vitamin c (up to 8000 mg's at one point and at one point 25,000 iu's of vitamin d3. Now i am taking about 4 000 mgs of vitimin c a day and 5000 ius of vitimin d3 a day.Do i have to worry about the infection coming back? All I can say is that my stomach isnt perfect (the vitimin c does have laxative effect) but i dont feel any abdominal pain and my appetite is back up but not exactly normal yet but getting there.
I just dont care to start taking cipro or anything like it again and i am allergic to penicillin antibiotic(they make it hard to breathe).At this point do i need to worry about taking another antibiotic?
I just dont care to start taking cipro or anything like it again and i am allergic to penicillin antibiotic(they make it hard to breathe).At this point do i need to worry about taking another antibiotic?
Brief Answer:
No need for so many supplements- very little risk for infection to come back
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Stomach infection happen due to viral or bacterial causes and vitamins are not necessarily going to affect them. It was believed before that vitamins augment the immune system and will help you not get sick, this is not the case for healthy people that already have a good immune system. I don't think you are at risk of developing the same infection soon- the body should have already given you some immunity.
You are taking a huge dose of vitamin D please do not exceed 800Ui a day, this is the daily dose of it. You don't need to continue to take vitamin C. There is no evidence that it will help and you are taking a huge dose also, you should for no reason exceed 1000 mg a day, most say that as much as 100 mg a day is enough.
If you had difficulty breathing with amoxiciline than you should not take it at all and all the antibiotics in it's family (augmentine, ampicilline, etc). Please let your doctor know always when you see him. Sometimes there is a class of antibiotics similar to amoxicilline (cephalosporines) that literature recommends avoiding when having these bad amoxicilline allergies.
The rest of antibiotics should be fine as long as you don't have allergy towards them.
I hope this is helpful and answers to your questions but please feel free to reply in case there is more clarification needed on this.
Kind regards,
Antoneta Zotaj, MD
No need for so many supplements- very little risk for infection to come back
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Stomach infection happen due to viral or bacterial causes and vitamins are not necessarily going to affect them. It was believed before that vitamins augment the immune system and will help you not get sick, this is not the case for healthy people that already have a good immune system. I don't think you are at risk of developing the same infection soon- the body should have already given you some immunity.
You are taking a huge dose of vitamin D please do not exceed 800Ui a day, this is the daily dose of it. You don't need to continue to take vitamin C. There is no evidence that it will help and you are taking a huge dose also, you should for no reason exceed 1000 mg a day, most say that as much as 100 mg a day is enough.
If you had difficulty breathing with amoxiciline than you should not take it at all and all the antibiotics in it's family (augmentine, ampicilline, etc). Please let your doctor know always when you see him. Sometimes there is a class of antibiotics similar to amoxicilline (cephalosporines) that literature recommends avoiding when having these bad amoxicilline allergies.
The rest of antibiotics should be fine as long as you don't have allergy towards them.
I hope this is helpful and answers to your questions but please feel free to reply in case there is more clarification needed on this.
Kind regards,
Antoneta Zotaj, MD
Note: For further follow up on related General & Family Physician Click here.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Kampana
Answered by
Get personalised answers from verified doctor in minutes across 80+ specialties
