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Hi,
You did not answer one of my questions. I’ll re-phrase it. Do you take an acid reducer drug like famotidine (Pepcid), ranitidine (Zantac), esomeprazole (Nexium), lansoprazole (Prevacid), omeprazole (Prilosec), etc.? Many people with your condition do, so that’s why I am asking.
Phil
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
- Albert EinsteinPhilC,
What is the connection between acid reducers and Minocin/Minocycline? I am on Omeprazole and was just prescribed Minocin. My insurance won’t pay for Minocin so I’m going to try minocycline. My pharmacy dispenses Teva brand but said they could get any generic I wanted. I haven’t posted in a while but I do check in and read the posts every 2 weeks or so. I’ve been reading the posts about the outrageous price of brand minocin lately. I was on brand minocin for six years and did very well on it but stopped in 2012 shortly after Dr T retired and my last prescription from him ran out.
Theresa
Hi Theresa,
There’s no known connection (yet). The reason I asked about acid reducers is because I am looking into factors affecting minocycline release. I found some evidence that minocycline release from most generics is dependent on pH:
“By adding the release modifier, the drug release rate at pH 7.4 increased close to that of pH 1.2 and the pH-independent release was obtained. In addition, it was shown that lubricants containing a divalent cation such as Mg stearate inhibited minocycline release in basic medium.”
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20091273
Because of the above finding, I suspect that people with low stomach acid, or those taking acid reducers, may have reduced absorption of minocycline from most generic forms (and some brands) of minocycline.
Phil
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
- Albert EinsteinThe interesting thing is, when I was taking brand Minocin, I was very sloppy about my dosage. I’d take it with dairy, take it with Tums, take 2 at a time, mix it with other meds, even take it with a cocktail if I forgot my dose, and I got great results. The minute I switched to generic, the antibodies shot up again. I have switched to Teva a couple weeks ago and will be retested in six months and see what happens.
Phil,
Thanks for the information.
Redrock,
That’s funny, I was also sloppy, doing most of the same things, with my dosage when I was on brand minocin before. I suspect that I’ll have to be more careful on the Teva.
So thought I’d share my experience of generic vs. brand. I was in remission on Minocin for about 5 years when my pharmacy filled my script with Teva generic in March 2014. I came out of remission by August 2014. I then got brand Minocin in Sept. 2014 and herxed badly until February 2015. Then I got better overnight and was back to about 75 percent and continuing to improve. In October or November of 2015 my ins. declined to authorize Minocin so I switched to Watson. I started to decline again rapidly and by January 2016 was doing poorly. I was able to get brand Minocin approved through new ins. and started it again mid February. I am again in a terrible Herx now but I’ve only been back on Minocin for two months. If I hadn’t gotten brand Minocin again I was going to switch to doxycycline as Phil suggests. I know of one person who does 30 days of Minocin and 30 days of doxycycline alternately due to the high costs of Minocin. I may try that if my ins. gives me a hard time about Minocin in the future. However, if I can get back to remission on Minocin I only need it 3 x a week on MWF which would still be $1200 month and although expensive, it’s worth it to me. I’ve been pretty sick for 2 years now due to this generic snafu. I know generic works for some but not for me. Im hoping we can all hang on until this exorbitant price hike is resolved or we discover something else that works as well as Minocin.
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