Yesterday, I took a nap after work and when I woke up, I had a fever and chills. I felt my cheeks pinch back and familiar tingles all over my body. A wave of fear jolted me up from bed. Is this Fluoroquinolone Toxicity again?

Our support groups are filled with tales of relapses. Stuff like, “I pushed myself too hard and now I have been re-floxed” seems like the stuff of nightmares. People avoid everything from alcohol to caffeine to any pharmaceuticals in order to avoid the feared “re-flox.” I am no different. About a year out, I started drinking alcohol again and my tolerance was so low (how is this even possible) that one drink would get me drunk and I would feel it in my system after a sip.

In 4 months, it will be 2 years since I was floxed. More recently, I have noticed alcohol affecting my body like this for the first time. Now, if I have even just one drink, it is likely I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with my hands numb and that this will happen the next day, too. I try to ignore it. It’s probably just leftover nerve damage, I tell myself, but I hope that it’s not straight-up coming back.

It seems unlikely, but sometimes this fear keeps me from going out. It keeps me from moving back home to LA. It keeps me from traveling for more than a week. This fear sometimes keeps me from living and I need to get over it, once-and-for-all.

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