change to doxy?

[SandiS]

I had a terrible flare last August both in labs and pain. It lasted several months and then I felt great for about 6 months. I am now having a terrible flare again that has lasted several months. Dr B increased my minocin from 100mg three days a week to 100mg five days a week. I also take 250mg of zith every other Sat. due to high strep titer. Dr B said I should consider switching to doxy for a few months because next month will be 4years on minocin. But my labs have improved this month crp from 63 to 24 and anticcp from 149 to 115. I hate to change meds when at my labs are improving. Any thoughts?

Sandi S

[Maz]

@SandiS wrote:

I had a terrible flare last August both in labs and pain. It lasted several months and then I felt great for about 6 months. I am now having a terrible flare again that has lasted several months. Dr B increased my minocin from 100mg three days a week to 100mg five days a week. I also take 250mg of zith every other Sat. due to high strep titer. Dr B said I should consider switching to doxy for a few months because next month will be 4years on minocin. But my labs have improved this month crp from 63 to 24 and anticcp from 149 to 115. I hate to change meds when at my labs are improving. Any thoughts?

Sandi S

Hi Sandi,

One thought that comes to mind is that flares can and do still occur while on AP, because it is not immune-suppressive in the same sense that the more conventional immune-suppressive drugs would be. Flaring will occur intermittently until sustained remission is reached.

Are you using brand Minocin or a generic minocycline? If using the Wyeth/Triax brand Minocin consistently, then you should be just fine, but when using a generic, pharmacies can sometimes do a switcheroo on people and provide a different brand that doesn’t produce quite the same results.

Doing a rotation to doxy may not be a bad idea for a few months, but you may find you will need to increase or adjust the dose to your tolerance. I have personally found doxy to not be as effective as minocycline and needed to use a higher daily dose, but each person is different and you may be just fine on it in the same dose.

If your labs are improving along with the flare subsiding, you’re right that it seems silly to switch to doxy now. It might just be more effective to ask the doc if you could increase the zith dose. The two abx are very compatible, so they can be taken alongside eachother very well.

Another idea is to try a washout period of a week or so, just in case there is building hypersensitivity, and to use this period of time to do some work on detoxification. Is your doc integrative, by any chance? Does he offer anything like IV Myer’s Cocktails or Glutatione pushes? These can be pretty great for knocking out flares, I’ve found. So can doing things like coffee enemas.

Is there anything you can pin down as initiating this flare? A passing infection? A spring or summer tickbite? Stressful period? Falling off your diet wagon? etc?

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