Magnesium helps protect against tendonitis due to quinolones

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Magnesium helps protect against tendonitis due to quinolones

This article is from 2000 but sheds some light on why quinolones may be

harmful in Lyme and cfs patients who are often low in magnesium. I have

had mag. levels tested three times in ten years and am always low. This

could explain why I developed damaged tendons from extensive

quinolones,

Levaquin and Avalox. Cuurently I take about 800 mg a day of magnesium

taurinate. This has helped my tendons to heal.

 - a Carnes

http://www.prostatitis.org/quinolonejoints.html

Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, February 2000, p. 261-266, Vol.

44, No. 2 Ultrastructure of Achilles Tendons of Rats Treated with

Ofloxacin and Fed a Normal

or Magnesium-Deficient Diet Mehdi Shakibaei,

1Kerstin Pfister, 2 Rudolf Schwabe, 2 JÝrgen Vormann,3 and Ralf

Stahlmann 2 ,* Institute

of Anatomy, 1Institute of

Clinical Pharmacology

and Toxicology, 2and Institute

of Molecular Biology and

Biochemistry,

3 lin

Medical Center,

Freie Universität

Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany

ABSTRACT

Fluoroquinolones can cause tendinitis and tendon rupture. However,

toxicological as well as clinical information on quinolone-induced

tendopathy is scarce. We performed extensive electron microscopic

studies with Achilles tendon specimens from ofloxacin-treated rats. The

drug was given at a dose of 1,200 mg/kg (body weight) orally. Juvenile

Wistar rats received one or three oral doses each of 1,200 mg of

ofloxacin/kg (body

weight)/day.

Three days after treatment, the

tenocytes of their Achilles tendons

showed degenerative alterations, such

as multiple vacuoles and vesicles

in the cytoplasm that had developed

due to swellings and dilatations of

cell organelles. Other indications of

cell degradation were the

occurrence of cell debris and cell

detachment from the extracellular

matrix accompanied by a loss of

cell-matrix interaction.

The tenocytes of juvenile Wistar rats that had been treated at day 36

with a single oral dose of 1,200 mg of ofloxacin/kg (body weight) and

sacrificed either 3 or 6 months later exhibited similar degenerative

alterations. The

number of degenerative alterations of tenocytes after

ofloxacin treatment was considerably higher in rats that

had received a

magnesium-deficient diet than in rats

with normal magnesium status. Of

the adult rats that had been treated once, 5 times, and 10 times with

ofloxacin and killed 1 day later, only those with the 10-times

treatment

showed a significantly increased number of degeneratively altered

tenocytes. In summary, effects observed in tendons show similar

pathological features as described earlier in cartilage, indicating

that

quinolone-induced arthropathy and quinolone-induced tendopathy probably

are different clinical manifestations of the same toxic effect on

cellular components of connective tissue structures.