posted
Has anyone taken tetracycline for their lyme. i am starting today. Any experiences on this antibiotic would be appreciated.
Posts: 11 | From massachusetts | Registered: Sep 2007
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Itsy_bitsyone
Unregistered
posted
Just got off of 1500mg a day for 4 weeks.
Hated it. I had to go off all abx and meds other than acid reduction and diflucan for over a week now (including lyrica) so that we could sort out what reaction was to what.
After that, not so sure I want to go back ON abx. I'm supposed to start clarithromycin with plaquenil this week...still on the fence...was more sick ON and after tetracycline than I was in years.
Made my sun reactions and burping on Doxy seem like a walk in the park.
Everyone is different. Good luck. Sorry...wish I could think of something positive...cannot think of anything good about it. Oh...I gained 5 lbs on it...I needed to gain weight.
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CaliforniaLyme
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 7136
Boston University Medical Center and Boston Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Massachusetts 02118, USA.
Two hundred seventy-seven patients with chronic Lyme disease were treated with tetracycline for 1 to 11 months (mean, 4 months); the outcomes for these patients were generally good.
Overall, 20% of the patients were cured; 70% of the patients' conditions improved, and treatment failed for 10% of the patients.
Improvement frequently did not take place for several weeks; after 2 months of treatment, 33% of the patients' conditions were significantly improved (degree of improvement, 75%-100%), and after 3 months of treatment, 61% of the patients' conditions were significantly improved.
Treatment outcomes for seronegative patients (20% of all patients) were similar to those for seropositive patients.
Western immunoblotting showed reactions to one or more Borrelia burgdorferi-specific proteins for 65% of the patients for whom enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were negative.
Whereas age, sex, and prior erythema migrans were not correlated with better or worse treatment outcomes, a history of longer duration of symptoms or antibiotic treatment was associated with longer treatment times to achieve improvement and cure.
These results support the use of longer courses of treatment in the management of patients with chronic Lyme disease.
Controlled trials need to be conducted to validate these observations.
Publication Types: Clinical trial
PMID: 9233665
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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My daughter started tetracycline this time last year. The first 4 days were fine, then the next 2 weeks were awful. Stomach pain (more than she had) nausea etc.
Some mornings it was tough to keep the meds down. She found that eating something with fat and protein 20 min after she took it helped.
BUT, then after those 2 weeks, she adjusted to it, and really, really started to feel better and tolerated it just fine. She is about 85% improved from her worst now, and is going to restart the tetra next month.(She was on it for 6 months) We are hoping it'll be easier starting it this time around.
YMMV - Good Luck!
Posts: 115 | From USA | Registered: May 2006
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posted
Sounds like mixed reviews. I took it yesterday for the first time. @ pills twice a day. So it has made me feel somewhat sluggish. Hopefully it gets better.
Posts: 11 | From massachusetts | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
I was on doxy, but it was hard on my stomach. So the doc switched me over to tetra, 2000mg a day, and I've been on it for several months now. He said the side effects weren't as harsh as the doxy.
Yeah right. My digestive problems have been worse since starting the tetra. I get terrible pain in my stomach sometimes, regardless of what I eat with it. I've also been more tired.
The tetra has also caused more pain in my back, shoulders, and ribs. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad. It seems like the longer I'm on the tetra, the worse my pain is getting in those areas, but my other symptoms are improving rapidly.
Posts: 81 | From Central PA | Registered: Mar 2007
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charlie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 25
posted
Tetra won't work if you eat with it...it has to be taken on an empty stomach...no food from 2 hours before till an hour after.
Charlie
Posts: 2804 | From Texas | Registered: Oct 2000
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Foggy
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 1584
posted
It was not helpful for me as I had coinfections Babs & Bart that had to be treated with specific abx & antimalarials.
Do a search here. Lots of info on Tetracylines.
Posts: 2451 | From Lyme Central | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I took it sometime last year and has some success with it. I took 2g/day of it and it had to be taken away from food (2 hours or so from what I remember).
The one side effect I noticed was that it made me very hungry!!
-------------------- Same nightmare, different day! Posts: 401 | From East Coast | Registered: Nov 2005
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Greatcod
Unregistered
posted
I have been on Tetra a couple of times, and it helped me, though I seem to relapse predictably. Couple of things--it causes some low grade nausea, which is a pain...what I figured out the last time I used it was that the weight gain was mostly an attempt to control the nausea by eating more. Solution to that was to empty the capsules into a glass of water- tetra is water soluable. That dilution of the drug produced far less nausea, and much less weight gain. The doctor said doing that was fine, but you might want to check.
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posted
Ive been on it for almost 3 weeks and I am 80% better no side effects at all!
-------------------- Lynda Posts: 8 | From Raynham Ma | Registered: Aug 2007
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Mathias
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5298
posted
It is tough on the gut and you need to fast. There are formulations of doxycycline and minocycline that are better for both. They also penetrate the Blood Brain Barrier better than Tetracycline.
-------------------- Mathias Posts: 1242 | From New Jersey | Registered: Feb 2004
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