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Growing up, I knew I always wanted to be a doctor, however I never knew what that reason truly was until I woke up and found out the truth about how medicine is practiced in the United States of America.

As a medical student, you are taught to memorize information, which you will never be told is funded by pharmaceutical companies. It seems at the end of every medical condition, we are programmed and taught to provide a pharmaceutical for an illness. We are programmed and trained to memorize the vaccine schedule like a bible and never to question its authority. See, as a medical student and resident, you have no right to question your teachers and attending physicians. It appears they are stuck in this old school mentality approach to medicine without having an open mind about how to truly prevent and tackle a disease.

From an early start, my passion lied in treating chronic disease, prevention, and finding the underlying reasons for an illness. However, I noticed the future of medicine becoming a medication cure-all for all patient’s ailments. I  realized that the traditional methods and ideologies used in Western Medicine that were taught to me failed to provide any insight into functional and regenerative medicine. I realized millions of American’s are suffering from chronic disease with no resolution of their symptoms in sight and are being given pills which only temporarily mask the pain & suffering. I noticed my patient’s were constantly being passed around from doctor to doctor to doctor, feeling as though their voice was not heard.

I knew this was not my destiny, but I was not allowed to speak up as a resident or I could risk losing everything I have worked for during the last 12 years. Unfortunately, a monumental event in my own personal life changed my path forever. In hindsight, my near death experience provided me with the knowledge to help millions all around the world.  From that moment, I knew I had to stand up for humanity and honor my oath as a physician to do no harm.

Unfortunately, In December 2016, my life was changed forever. I was Floxxed. Now, to the average person, you may have no idea what the term floxxed refers to, well it has become a word that will stick to me for the rest of my life. My life got flipped turned upside down (Fresh Prince homage) I experienced a severe, and underreported adverse reaction to a widely prescribed antibiotic called Ciprofloxacin. Being told in medical school and residency that anything FDA approved goes through rigorous testing and never has any serious reported side effects, I felt this was safe being prescribed from my gastroenterologist for a stomach bug. After consuming only 3 pills of the antibiotic Cipro,  a bomb went off in my body and I found myself on the floor in excruciating pain for several hours after a 5-minute jog. Calling an ambulance to carry me on a stretcher home was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life because I could not stand up. Regretfully, things became much worse as my body deteriorated to complete muscle wasting, 15 pounds of muscle loss, burning neuropathy, seizures, brain fog, vertigo, blurry vision, and tendon tears just to name a few. In the blink of an eye, my life changed from a successful practicing doctor to a man confined in a wheelchair’; losing all hope of living a normal life again.

At one point, I  nearly gave up; I placed my living will in order as I was slowly deteriorating every day. It was at that time where I spoke with hundreds of other victims and realized this was occurring to thousands of individuals around the world. The turning point came when the mother of a 17-year old high school star baseball pitcher called me to share her son’s story of becoming debilitated from the same antibiotic, crushing his dream of becoming a college baseball pitcher. I knew I had to something when hundreds of people were asking me for help, it was my duty as a physician to figure this out and create my own treatment plan, regaining the ability to walk again and provide help to those experiencing disabling side effects from this class of medications.

I remember spending countless hours digging up any research I could find about reversing this horrifying condition. I was led to use alternative & regenerative medicine for treating my condition and realized everything I learned through my training was only going to make me worse.  world of natural treatment that is taboo to speak about in medical school and shunned by my fellow colleagues as doctors who do not prescribe medications are nothing short of quacks. I realized the process of how medications become approved and how the drug companies have diplomatic immunity to whatever they do. The FDA and drug companies have known for 30 years that this class of antibiotics have disabled millions of people, yet however not one doctor has spoken a word. Millions of patients are being told the symptoms are in their head, millions of women are being told they are emotional or have a psychiatric illness. I began asking patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, food allergies, neuropathy, and weakness if they have ever consumed these antibiotics, and an overwhelming number of them said yes. 

This is the most under reported man made disease created in medical history.  If I know the pharmaceutical company is capable of this type of devastation making zero effort to stop it, I know I can’t trust any synthetically created drug any longer. There are millions of patients on anti-depressants, painkillers, attention disorder medications, and thyroid medications, without an answer to the underlying reason why they need to be on the medication in the first place and are often times placed on the meds lifelong without a cure.  The American health care system has failed to provide us doctors with the right tools to actually aid our  patients in recovery,  not mask their symptoms and hook them on a legal drug for the rest of their lives.

Author: Dr. Mark Ghalili DO