DEAR DR. GOTT: I am an 80-year-old woman in good health. I am not overweight, walk at least two miles every day, and my blood pressure is normally within the accepted range.
I had foot surgery for a hammertoe and got a small infection in it. The doctor gave me the antibiotic cephalexin, and my foot healed well. Three weeks after taking the antibiotic, I developed a twitch in my left eye, and the following day, the left side of my face was twitching and felt strange. I went to my primary-care doctor to find out what was happening, and he told me that my blood-pressure medicine was not working. He increased the dosage from 25 milligrams to 50 milligrams per day. I told my doctor that I thought it was a reaction to the cephalexin, but he said that it couldn’t be from the drug because too much time had passed from when I last took it to when my symptoms began. [Read more...]