Cipro & Floaters

[GS712]

My floaters appeared after I was given Cipro. This all started April 2006. I was given Cipro for a simple UTI, I was 36 years old. I was dizzy for three and half weeks, vertigo, nausea, then the ear pressure, spots in left eye, flashes in left eye, short term memory loss, horrible dreams, weak wrists and knees, massive floaters headaches, ears ringing, dry eyes, itching all over, rashes, insomnia, dark spots in left eye, eye pain, blurred vision, sensitive to sound, vitreous detachment happened in left eye and now happening with the right eye. I have filed a complaint with Med Watch, those of you that have taken Cipro and have the eye problems should file a complaint. The Doctor said I would get used to them, they would fall out of view. I’m not used to them and they have not fallen out of view. It’s been 2 years almost. It’s hard to wake up each day, my eyes are full of spots, floaters, sensitive to light, reading, night vision. My life was instantly and drastically changed.


This discussion is related to Floaters/After-Images/Photosensitivity/Black Spot: Is Cipro the cause?.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS]

CIPRO DOES NOT CAUSE FLOATERS.  Any relationship to your taking it and the floaters is co-incidental. I just finished a course of Cipro myself.

JCH III MD

[GS712]

Cipro does cause floaters.  Just because it didn't happen to you, does not mean a thing.  Take it again or several times, and then come back here and type your story.  I have been to my eye doctors 7 times, and yes, they agree that Cipro can cause floaters and eye problems.  It is one of the side effects.

[AnnaE]

What other kinds of eye problems is it supposed to cause? I took a lot of Cipro, and have a lot of eye problems, but there is no evidence that the two are connected. How did your doctor connect them?Have you looked up the side effects on WEB MD or somewhere?

[Tourkos]

Took Cipro for 3 weeks. 4 months later have intracranial pressure, floaters (massive), visual snow, ringing ears, pressure in head, nausea, vomiting, adrenal problems (cortisol production has dropped 50% and it doesnt come back apparently), doctors say that the drug messed up my HPA axis probably since my adrenal glands look normal, developed hypothyroidism (have tests to prove that), collagen abnormalities and a dozen of other symptoms. Plus not to forget my spleen grew about 4 cm and i cant sleep on the left side at night.

I have quit my job, my basketball team and my studies and stay home now for 4 months due to cipro side effects. Have filed complains too. Its pointless, bayer wont do nothing before theres like probably 20000 deaths from this ****. But my life has been ruined at 27 yrs old.

THANKS CIPRO

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS]

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[roldan]

i have been having similiar problems with cipro. i took a 3 week course of cipro(21 Days) i stopped using cipro on 8/23/08. today is september 6 , and my symptoms are really bothering me. i have really bad head pressure, almost like a headache, but it feels like someone is squeezing my head. i have been having this for 2 weeks now.  i been to the eye doctor this week, i woke up and my vision was very blurry, it remained that way for much of the day, i went to the opthamologist and he said that aside from the spots in my eye, my vision was normal. i found that odd. the blurriness went away but i fear that it will come back worse next time. as for tendon pain, when i was taking ciro i had elbow pain, knee pain, but it looks like it went away, but i cant be sure until time passes. i hope this ends , or the medication leaves my body. i am living in fear.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS]

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[Magenit]

Interesting.. When i got my floaters i had been on every perscription known to man.. Cipro was one of them.... Still have them.. annoying..

[berrywoo]

Cipro taken orally may cause some ocular problems such as blurred vision, change in color perceptions, light sensitivity, decreased visual acuity, diplopia, and eye pain. The manifestations of these symptoms depends on the amount of cipro taken and the duration of treatment. Generally, the ocular side effects are not all that common. There is NO mention of cipro causing floaters.

Cipro ophthalmic can cause a burning/stinging sensation when instilling, as well as a bad taste in your mouth. Also, in rare cases it can cause blurred vision, eye pain, and increased sensitivity to light. Again, there is no known relationship between cipro ophthalmic and floaters.

If you have any adverse side effects while taking any form of cipro talk w/ your doctor. However, please note that there has been no scientific evidence linking cipro and floaters.  

[dukey]

"Cipro taken orally may cause some ocular problems such as blurred vision, change in color perceptions, light sensitivity, decreased visual acuity, diplopia, and eye pain. The manifestations of these symptoms depends on the amount of cipro taken and the duration of treatment. Generally, the ocular side effects are not all that common. There is NO mention of cipro causing floaters."

Yeh this is spot on. The side effects of cipro are usually CNS related and so could lead to these kind of adverse events. The link to floaters seems fantasy though. There are a few reports of high dose cipro being associated with optic neuropathy but I think it resolves with cessation of treatment.  

[whoa182]

Cipro can cause floaters. Upon my first dose of cipro I developed bilateral tendonitis in my ankles, and wrists. Peripheral neuropathy, chronic insomnia, chronic nightmares, digestive problems, dyspagia, muscle pains, tinnitus, ear pain, eye pain, eye floaters, eye flashing, lines in my vision, grainy/snow vision, poor night vision, blurry vision, poor adjusting from light to dark places. Dry mouth, Dry eyes, Dry and wrinkled skin. Caffeine intolerence that lasted 6 months, Pounding heart, pulsating sensations in my temples, neck, abdomen. Joint pains. Spider veins etc etc etc etc.... the list goes on and on.

Before all of this I was very healthy 23 year old male, with a diet primarily consisting of vegetables, fruits, nuts, lean meats and fish for the last 6 years. I've also been very active in sports all my life and very fit.

My life was completely changed 2 hours after my first cipro dose :(

[cyprosited]

Sorry to read about all your problems.  I took a 30 day regimen of Cipro and developed dry eyes, followed by floaters and light anomalies.  These symptoms were the result of vitreal detachments in both eyes.  The vitreal detachments led to retinal detachments in both eyes.  Although eye problems have yet to be well documented in scientific literature, cipro has a propensity to attack collagen.  The vitreous humor that fills the eye is mostly water interlased with collagen fibrils.  When the collagen fibrils are compromised, the vitreous can breakdown and collapse in on itself. This event is called a vitreal detachment.

I also experienced dry wrinkled skin.  But, of course, the biggest concern has been the retinal detachments.  Reattachment of the retina in my left eye was reasonablly successful although I lost about 20% of my vision.  The right eye was just finished so its too early to tell.  

I personally would avoid taking Cypro on a long term basis.  

[cipropatient]

cyprosited's theory about ciprofloxacin attacking the collagen in the vitreous humor seems quite plausible since cipro's well known side effect of tendonitis could also be caused by a collagen attack.

In light of cyprosited's experience, I'm hoping its just a coincidence, but I took a total of 10 grams (10,000 milligrams) of cipro over 10 days three months ago and in the last two or three days have experienced the following symptoms in my right eye: flashing light sensations and a single large floater to the right of my central vision which I believe represents the root of the optic nerve (the blind spot). These symptoms are new. I've had another visual symptom--floaters--for 25 years. By the way, I'm a myope.

About the only good thing that can be said of ciprofloxacin therapy is that it is better than losing life or limb to an infection. Typically cipro is used as an antibiotic of last resort--the last, best hope before amputation or death. It is a very powerful antibiotic but it also has some pretty ugly side effects.

Why haven't we heard from those people who took cipro and didn't have any visual problems? Perhaps we only hear about the coincidences that might occur purely by chance.

[dogdomain]

Well - I have been going crazy.  I too cipro Nov. 2000 and again Aug/07.
I have noticed major problems with my eyes now for maybe since the 2000 cipro.
I have had natural mono vision and was fairly happy that way. I spent a lot of time on computer starting 2000 so thought it was that maybe.  My first major symptom was that my eyes felt like I was looking into halogen lights, seeing blotches and blurred vision a very bleary eyed at the best of times causing squinting and much stress, but not much of a real problem with actual vision upon testing for glasses.  Then I also started seeing double which was getting worse and worse and was told adult strabismus but no bad enough to operate on so I was prescribed prism glasses for driving at least, but could use regularly.  So many things going on that specialists could not appreciate was as bad from my side as it was.  In 2007 then I saw about cataracts and one doctor said not bad enough to operate.  I went to another highly regarded and told I thought the double vision might be a result of the oncoming cataract and the mono vision situation.  He seemed to agree and we operated for cataracts on both eyes.  The first two weeks seems real good while I was still on the drops, but then and still now see a lot of blotches which I do not believe are floaters, poor focusing.  Best I can describe it is that I have oil in my eyes that won't mix with tears.  They also told me I have dry eyes and after testing that situation is apparently borderline.   I use drops constantly and while a little soothing the vision does not change.  I am now also using Restasis.  Oh yes, forgot to tell you that the double vision has improved considerably after 4th specialist and surgeon decided we should try that operation.  Thank God we at least fixed that part of it.  Now I am running around with my second set of glasses for reading, computer and distance after the cataract removals.  These are a little better, but nothing seems to make my eyes feel comfortable except not using them at all.  I know there was something that  happened around year 2000 that caused something to change with my eyes. I have been groping around to try to recall what might have done it and so far my best answer was too much computer use for long periods in improper lighting of fine work, such as a lot of accounting, or website design and I am such a perfectionist that everything has to be just so.
I would like to hear more about what could have caused my problems and if it all sounds familiar to anyone lets communicate so we can help others.  To date, the doctor who did the cataract is making me feel like a hypochondriac which I am not as he said I was expecting too much.  The people I talk to who have had cataract surgery are happy and not going through what I am and in fact I know this started before that surgery and I thought once that was done things would be great.  Well things aren't great and I sure would like to know how and/or what to do about it to change it.

[GS712]

They are finally reseaching this.  Levaquin is in the same class a CIPRO.

Portland, OR: As if tendinitis and tendon rupture were not serious enough Levaquin side effects, the antibiotic has now been linked to yet another side effect. The Levaquin medication, which already carries a warning about the risk of tendon ruptures and tendinitis, was linked in a study to an increased risk of diplopia (double vision). So patients who may have been concerned about Levaquin tendon ruptures may now have to be concerned about problems with their vision.

The study, which was published in the September issue of the journal Ophthalmology studied 171 case reports from the National Registry of Drug-Induced Ocular Side Effects, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the World Health Organization. Of those 171 cases, 20 were linked to Levaquin and 75 were linked to Cipro. Other drugs linked to double vision included Tequin, Avelox, Noroxin and Floxin. All are in a class of drugs known as fluoroquinolones and are used to treat infections, including bacterial or chronic bronchitis, sinusitis and urinary infections.