6 replies to this topic

[wassupman99]

Hi guys!

Im a 17 year old male and I'm currently in my Junior year of high school. This extreme stress and lack of sleep has made me break out starting last year in the 10th grade. After failed results from using Salicylic Acid and Benzoyl Peroxide, my parents took me to the dermatologist who prescribed me the antibiotic doxycycline, Duac, and Retin A micro. After about two weeks I started having stomach pains in the lower abdomen and diarrhea so I stopped taking doxycycline abruptly, but continued using Duac in the morning and Retin A micro at night. After using all these drugs, my skin did improve significantly.

For 10 months I stopped using all those drugs except the left over Duac cream as a spot treatment (which doesn't seem to work). Now I'm starting to break out significantly again so I started to take the doxycycline pills that my dermatologist prescribed to me to take only when I break severely again. I've been taking it 2 times a day, 2-3 hours before/after a meal, for 5 days now.

My skin appears to me getting better but I was just wondering when I should stop taking doxycycline. Should I wean off of it? If so, how?

Thanks in advance!

Edited by wassupman99, 29 April 2012 - 12:59 AM.

[whoartthou1]

5 days to 2 weeks is really nothing when it comes to antibiotics. If you want to use them, you have to take them for 3-4 months AT least

[Green Gables]

Hi guys!

Im a 17 year old male and I'm currently in my Junior year of high school. This extreme stress and lack of sleep has made me break out starting last year in the 10th grade. After failed results from using Salicylic Acid and Benzoyl Peroxide, my parents took me to the dermatologist who prescribed me the antibiotic doxycycline, Duac, and Retin A micro. After about two weeks I started having stomach pains in the lower abdomen and diarrhea so I stopped taking doxycycline abruptly, but continued using Duac in the morning and Retin A micro at night. After using all these drugs, my skin did improve significantly.

For 10 months I stopped using all those drugs except the left over Duac cream as a spot treatment (which doesn't seem to work). Now I'm starting to break out significantly again so I started to take the doxycycline pills that my dermatologist prescribed to me to take only when I break severely again. I've been taking it 2 times a day, 2-3 hours before/after a meal, for 5 days now.

My skin appears to me getting better but I was just wondering when I should stop taking doxycycline. Should I wean off of it? If so, how?

Thanks in advance!

As someone who has been on long 4-6 month courses of many antibiotics and they all stopped working, I would highly recommend you take the opposite approach. Your gut is supposed to naturally have billions of GOOD bacteria to fight off the BAD bacteria. An antibiotic kills ALL bacteria. It's like if you're defending a fort, and someone is attacking it, and your friend comes in nukes the whole fort. Well it killed the bad guys, but it also killed your defense system.

I would read this guy's post and follow some of his advice to rebuild your good gut bacteria. Then your body can kill off bad pathogens on its own.

http://www.acne.org/messageboard/index.php/topic/316709-gut-flora-and-leaky-gut-after-5-years-i-finally-found-the-root-cause-and-im-clear-using-the-gut-diet/

[ajab561]

Hi guys!

Im a 17 year old male and I'm currently in my Junior year of high school. This extreme stress and lack of sleep has made me break out starting last year in the 10th grade. After failed results from using Salicylic Acid and Benzoyl Peroxide, my parents took me to the dermatologist who prescribed me the antibiotic doxycycline, Duac, and Retin A micro. After about two weeks I started having stomach pains in the lower abdomen and diarrhea so I stopped taking doxycycline abruptly, but continued using Duac in the morning and Retin A micro at night. After using all these drugs, my skin did improve significantly.

For 10 months I stopped using all those drugs except the left over Duac cream as a spot treatment (which doesn't seem to work). Now I'm starting to break out significantly again so I started to take the doxycycline pills that my dermatologist prescribed to me to take only when I break severely again. I've been taking it 2 times a day, 2-3 hours before/after a meal, for 5 days now.

My skin appears to me getting better but I was just wondering when I should stop taking doxycycline. Should I wean off of it? If so, how?

Thanks in advance!

As someone who has been on long 4-6 month courses of many antibiotics and they all stopped working, I would highly recommend you take the opposite approach. Your gut is supposed to naturally have billions of GOOD bacteria to fight off the BAD bacteria. An antibiotic kills ALL bacteria. It's like if you're defending a fort, and someone is attacking it, and your friend comes in nukes the whole fort. Well it killed the bad guys, but it also killed your defense system.

I would read this guy's post and follow some of his advice to rebuild your good gut bacteria. Then your body can kill off bad pathogens on its own.

http://www.acne.org/...g-the-gut-diet/

Antibiotics don't kill all bacteria. That's why there are so many different antibiotics--each antibiotic has a "spectrum" of bacteria that it kills. While it's true that antibiotics can kill off some good bacteria, they are also very effective against P. acnes, the type of bacteria that lives on the skin and in pores that causes acne. All the good bacteria in the world in your gut isn't going to change the bacteria in your skin.

Antibiotics are necessary for some cases of acne. You can take a probiotic supplement at least two hours apart from your antibiotic to replenish your good bacteria if that's a concern.

[whoartthou1]

Hi guys!

Im a 17 year old male and I'm currently in my Junior year of high school. This extreme stress and lack of sleep has made me break out starting last year in the 10th grade. After failed results from using Salicylic Acid and Benzoyl Peroxide, my parents took me to the dermatologist who prescribed me the antibiotic doxycycline, Duac, and Retin A micro. After about two weeks I started having stomach pains in the lower abdomen and diarrhea so I stopped taking doxycycline abruptly, but continued using Duac in the morning and Retin A micro at night. After using all these drugs, my skin did improve significantly.

For 10 months I stopped using all those drugs except the left over Duac cream as a spot treatment (which doesn't seem to work). Now I'm starting to break out significantly again so I started to take the doxycycline pills that my dermatologist prescribed to me to take only when I break severely again. I've been taking it 2 times a day, 2-3 hours before/after a meal, for 5 days now.

My skin appears to me getting better but I was just wondering when I should stop taking doxycycline. Should I wean off of it? If so, how?

Thanks in advance!

As someone who has been on long 4-6 month courses of many antibiotics and they all stopped working, I would highly recommend you take the opposite approach. Your gut is supposed to naturally have billions of GOOD bacteria to fight off the BAD bacteria. An antibiotic kills ALL bacteria. It's like if you're defending a fort, and someone is attacking it, and your friend comes in nukes the whole fort. Well it killed the bad guys, but it also killed your defense system.

I would read this guy's post and follow some of his advice to rebuild your good gut bacteria. Then your body can kill off bad pathogens on its own.

http://www.acne.org/...g-the-gut-diet/

Antibiotics don't kill all bacteria. That's why there are so many different antibiotics--each antibiotic has a "spectrum" of bacteria that it kills. While it's true that antibiotics can kill off some good bacteria, they are also very effective against P. acnes, the type of bacteria that lives on the skin and in pores that causes acne. All the good bacteria in the world in your gut isn't going to change the bacteria in your skin.

Antibiotics are necessary for some cases of acne. You can take a probiotic supplement at least two hours apart from your antibiotic to replenish your good bacteria if that's a concern.

yea but once you stop taking the antibiotic, the good bacteria might not be able to fight off the P.ACNES bacteria as well as it previously did...

[ajab561]

It's possible, but taking a probiotic supplement or just simply eating yogurt solves this problem.

[Green Gables]

It's possible, but taking a probiotic supplement or just simply eating yogurt solves this problem.

Eating yogurt does not solve this problem.

a) Many yogurt brands do not even contain live cultures after processing.
b) An ideal gut contains close to a trillion bacteria and 50-100 strains of good bacteria. There is no possible way that "eating yogurt", which if it does contain live cultures, contains only 3 strains, is going to re-populate everything the antibiotic killed off.

Also, please do your reserach on "p. acnes." The stuff you are touting is about ten years old. There have been many studies since then that show it is no longer conclusive that P. acnes is always present in acne or is even the main trigger.

Some further research on the human microbiome and the role of gut flora would also be helpful, since again, you are touting medical philosophy that is at least a decade old.

This article is a good start: http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all
And the NIH Human Microbiome Project: http://www.hmpdacc.org/
And Microbiota Targeted Therapies: http://stm.sciencema...nt/4/137/137rv5

Antibiotics kill off harmful bacteria, but broad-spectrum forms can kill off many desirable species, too. Dr. Fischbach likens antibiotics to herbicides sprayed on a garden. The herbicide kills the unwanted plants, but also kills off the tomatoes and the roses. The gardener assumes that the tomatoes and roses will grow back on their own.
In fact, there’s no guarantee the microbial ecosystem will automatically return to normal. “It’s one of those assumptions we make today that will seem silly in retrospect,” Dr. Fischbach said. Indeed, some bacteria are adapted for invading and establishing themselves in disrupted ecosystems. A species called Clostridium difficile will sometimes invade a person’s gut after a course of antibiotics. From 2000 to 2009, the number of hospitalized patients in the United States found to have C. difficile more than doubled, to 336,600 from 139,000. Once established, the antibiotic-resistant C. difficile can be hard to eradicate.

I think I've made my point, so I will not be responding to this topic any further, I am not interested in a fruitless debate. Have fun researching!

Edited by Green Gables, 09 September 2012 - 08:17 AM.