Minocycline & Headaches

[RAinPA]

I’ve been on minocycline now for about 3 months for RA, 100mgs MWF. Within the last week I have started having headaches everyday, practically all day long. I’ve been trying not to take tylenol/ibprophen for them but sometimes I have to because they get really bad. I read that one of the side effects of minocycline can be headaches. Anyone else experience this? How long do they typically last?

[WAYNE HARGREAVES]

Hi ,

I have just come off Minocycline, also when started used to get headaches, i did switch from a pulsed dose MWF to every day 100mg seemed to settle down been on Minocycline for 7 Months no probs, it has helped my cough too,
Maybe try changing dose a little see how you feel,

Good luck

Wayne

[Maz]

@RAinPA wrote:

I’ve been on minocycline now for about 3 months for RA, 100mgs MWF. Within the last week I have started having headaches everyday, practically all day long. I’ve been trying not to take tylenol/ibprophen for them but sometimes I have to because they get really bad. I read that one of the side effects of minocycline can be headaches. Anyone else experience this? How long do they typically last?

Hi RAinPA,

Sorry to hear about your persistant headaches. This is strange, because usually what happens is a person begins minocycline and may suffer headaches early on, but then the body adjusts within a few months and the headaches resolve, as Wayne described.

Perhaps the only way to know if it’s the minocycline, for sure, or some other issue (like an unaddressed coinfection rising to the surface, like babesiosis?) would be to ask your doc if you can do a washout week from your minocycline. This shouldn’t change the course of your treatment much, at all, and Brown would often do washouts to reduce bound immune-complexes when a patient was suffering from hypersensitivity (from too much die-off). Taking a break might help discern whether or not it’s actually the minocycline or something else that is the problem.

I, too, had some minor headaches, along with some vertigo, when I started minocycline, as early vestibular side-effects, but they diminished within a month or two and were completely resolved by three months.

Do hope you can figure this out. Let us know what you discover, if you can.

[PhilC]

Severe headaches are one of the signs of a serious side-effect associated with minocycline (and other tetracyclines) use known as Pseudotumor cerebri.

See:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9683157
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/434356
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jop/2009/203583.html

You may need to switch to a different antibiotic.

Phil

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
- Albert Einstein

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