Hi,

I’m a 23 years women and I’ve been suffering from Peripheral Neuropathy for a year.

Last year I was treated twice with a 2g single dose of Metronidazole (Flagyl), with 3-4 months apart each treatment.

Now I can’t really remember when my neuropathic symptoms started exactly but I’m pretty sure it started after taking these antibiotics.

At first, the symptoms were mild, but overtime they got worse until they became quite constant and severe :
• constant tingling, sharp/shooting pains, slight numbness in arms, legs, hands and feets and muscle twitching all over my body.

I have been using recreational drugs for around 8 years, especially cocaine and ecstasy.
I’d say I was doing coke more or less 4 times a month around the time I was given the antibiotics. (I stopped completely very recently)

I remember the symptoms becoming constant after a party loaded with cocaine and ecstasy and it never stopped since.

When I went to the doctor to investigate, all they could find was a Folate and Ferritin deficiency which are now being treated... they don’t suspect these being the cause but they can’t really do anything else so they referred me to a specialist that I’m seeing in September.
I hope this will be gone by September hence why I’m investigating myself.

So I’ve been searching and even thought I know that Flagyl can cause my symptoms, I’ve read that it takes a certain amount of the medication consumed over an extended period of time for the neuropathy to develop.
I don’t feel like I took “enough” of the Metronidazole for it to be the cause of the neuropathy. I took 4g all together and some websites states that it starts around 13g...
Can someone back this up? Could 4g be enough to cause it or should I drop it ?

Now I’m aware that cocaine is neurotoxic, so my best hypothesis is that the cocaine possibly started damaging my nerves a long time ago and then when Flagyl came into the mix, it caused deeper damages that caused my symptoms to appear. The neuropathy then got worse because I kept on taking cocaine, resulting my Neuropathy to becoming constant and severe...

I’m not a doctor, but my doctor wasn’t able to tell me much about the cause so I just looking out for myself... Does my hypothesis make any sense at all?

How does toxic neuropathy develop? I read that it stops when you stop taking the toxic substances that cause nerve damages and the healing start from there. Anyone can testify?
How did your toxic neuropathy symptoms progress ? Was it sudden of gradual ?

I started treating myself with vitamins and natural supplements, and I take Epsom salts bath when it gets too much... that’s all I got for now. Any supplements that I could benefits from ?

Anything that could be helpful to know?

Thanks !!