I dont think you'd develop a resistance in the short amount of time of 2 months. For tough cases, you may not see full results of antibiotics for up to 3 months. Also, your BC may be contributing to the current breakout. Id give the antibiotic another month before discussing an alternative plan w/ your derm.

Hi Frenchie,

The fact is that maximum acne clearance commonly occurs about 6 weeks into a treatment cycle, so you are unlikely to see any improvement using this drug. Due to antibiotic resistance, most patients return to their physicians seeking an alternative treatment within 18 weeks of starting a course of antibiotics. Antibiotics are NOT a long term acne solution, but there are options out there that will rid you of your problem.

Best of luck.

Andrew DG

*Moderator edit, URL removed - read the board rules. *

I myself have been on several antibiotics and unfortunately they do take months to work.

I've also been on dianette for 5/6yrs now and the dermatologist agreed it was the only thing that will help with the fact my acne is hormonal.

I found my body resisting after maybe a year and a half on antibiotics not just a couple of months.

My current antibiotic only started working after 4 months and at the moment my skin is great i am reluctant to come of it to go onto accutane due to side effects but i know in the long run these antibiotics will stop working.

So antibiotics should work but i'd give each course at least 6 months before giving up on them. In the long run it may be best going for something like accutane if the derm agrees..

Thank you for your reply and good luck xxx

I am experiencing a similar problem, I have been on Doxycycline for almost 7 weeks then started minocycline immediately after. I am now on my 4th week on minocycline, and I am BREAKING OUT like CRAZY ! i even got cystic acne on my back ! which i never had before!

The funny thing, I took minocycline 18 months ago, it made wonders to my akin and cleared it up the minute i took it ! Unfortunately that did not last ... I started breaking out again after almost 10 months of being off the drug.

I dont know if is it the Doxycycline that has affected the drug's ability to cure my acne? or is it possible that I builded some sort of resistance !

PLEASE HELP :''''''''( !!!

Hey you should ask your doctor! He/she will know and can help you! I hope it gets better for you xxx

What options are available once one becomes resistant to an antibiotic? Are there different kinds of antibiotics you can switch to? I just started clindamycin gel and I'm already thinking what I can turn to once it stops working...I really liked it, it worked so fast and no side effects.

There are different classes of antibiotic you can try when you become resistant to one but I quickly became resistant to them all. Once you get to that point you will have to try alternatives like accutane, bcp and such. Everyone takes a different amount of time to become resistant though, I became resistant to doxycycline within 6 months and after that none of them would work. Other people can go years between different ones. Depends on you, don't worry about it till it happens.

I've used clindamycin a couple of times and even though it is certainly less effective than the first month that i used it, it still gets the job done at the end of the day. I think it works particularly well if you use clindoxyl, which is usually 1% clindamycin and 5% benzoyl peroxide, if you're not already using that product. I suppose you could always try topical retinoids...but I tend to shy away from those.

My doc asked if I wanted to try minocycline if I wanted to be really aggressive with my acne (I'm already using clindamycin phosphate and Diane)...but I'm not sure I want to because my acne is probably mild-moderate but I just have a lot of PIH. And it seems that antibiotics are rarely a long-term fix since most threads/reviews talk about acne resurgence that's like 10x worse than initially. I don't know if I want to take that risk?

i was on minocycline back in the day and it worked really good for me and totally cleared me up and then i was put on amoxicillin a few years after that which did nothing! 5 years ago when i was breaking out again the derm decided to give me bactrim which gave me an allergic reaction and then a few years later i was put on doxcycyline. i took that on and off at higher and lower doses for 2 years and then it stopped working and then i was given zithromax which did nothing and then last year keflex which cleared me in 5 days. i am weaning off it now but i think each time you use antibiotics you need to go to the next stronger one for them to work. my acne is totally hormonal so i am on spiro as well but for some reason antibiotics work so well for me in that they totally stop all my acne completely.

a girl i work with was on minocycyline for 8 years and got off it two years ago with no problems and a lady at the derm's office was on them for 2 years with no issues at all so it just depends on the person. also low dose doxcycline which would be 50mg a day is fine to take forever because it doesnt disturb gut flora and is totally safe so that is an option as well. sometimes you just need to experiment with different antibiotics because some of them work and some dont.

i would recommend that you have a good skincare regimen too because that will help a lot especially for when you do eventually decide to stop the antibiotics.