During surgery, hysterectomy and BSO, in May 2008 I was given a 160mg dose of gentamicin. Since the surgery I have had many problems. On my first day home post-surgery I experienced an odd feeling in my head; it felt as though there were little bursts of electricity going off in my brain. I also began to have very bad nightmares. I then began to get unusual headaches, unlike any I had experienced before. Sometimes the headaches were accompanied by auras, and although I had occasionally suffered from migraines and auras in the past, the nature of the headaches and auras were different to any previous migraine. During the headaches I would often feel weakness on one side and difficulty pronouncing words. I also noticed shortly after the surgery that when closing my eyes before going to sleep I would see a kaleidescope of coloured lights and bright flashing lights. When waking during the night, it felt as if my brain was shaking. I would usually get up and turn the light on, but this caused me to feel as if my vision was shaking too. I also began to experience very bad tinnitus and felt that my balance was off (in 2007 after a week's course of erythromycin followed by two weeks of clarithromycin I began to have tinnitus and quite bad vertigo but was told by an ENT consultant that the antibiotics were unlikely to have caused this as the course wasn't long enough to cause the symptoms). Somewhat worryingly, I began to notice that sometimes when I woke up during the night I would see images which I knew were not there. I saw mesh-like structures, geometric patterns, amoeba-like shapes, large slowly-moving curving arrows, branching structures and a spectacular show of a lattice of blue balls with red outlines rolling down the wall.
For two weeks after the surgery I had problems with my vision blurring. I have also had problems with reading and comprehending text, concentration and word recall. The problems I have with reading text are similar to those experienced by people with scotopic sensitivity syndrome. I am a dyslexia tutor and Irlen Syndrome screener so am familiar with visual problems and their impact on reading. I have not yet been able to return to work and because of the symptoms I continue to experience am concerned that I will find doing my job efficiently almost impossible.
I was referred to a neurologist and last week had a brain scan. Is it possible that just one dose of gentamicin could have caused this? In 1999 I was diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivity by an eminent professor of immunolgy and allergy and feel that I do not clear drugs from my system quickly. In 2004 I was advised by Professor Karol Sikora not to have chemotherapy for breast cancer because of my MCS.
I would be grateful for comments.
Other drugs given during the operation: propofol, rocuronium, pethidine, midazolam, fentanyl, ondansetron, dexamethasone, metronidazole, neostigmine, glycopyrrolate and paracoxib. I also had nitrous oxide and sevoflurane.
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Originally Posted by johnep 
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