minocycline - acne

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Minocycline, like any antibiotic, or any drug for that matter, can have side effects. Not clear what you mean by "struggling," so hard to say if minocycline is the cause. If the athlete is just running slower and not feeling fit, hard to blame that on the drug, although anything is possible.

More specific things, which we warn people about when starting minocycline are (I practice in infectious diseases, so use it a lot): photosensetivity, diarrhea, and inner ear dysfunction (rare). So if your athlete is struggling because of a sunburn, has the runs, and is dizzy- yes, probably it due to the minocycline. If its more vague stuff, I would doubt the drug is at fault.

I took it for a while. I didn't think about it at first, but when I looked back on it, I seemed much more prone to feeling sluggish and tired when I was taking it. I had periods where my 5k would be nearly a minute slower than what it should have been because I couldn't train and I was tired all the time. It didn't seem to work that well for my acne either. It can disrupt the naturally found bacteria in your intestine which produce many essential nutrients or you and help you in absorbing others. I'd recommend something else. Maybe that is just me though.

And the thing to remember is that with most antibiotic treatmetns, they are short lasting and will not likely damage your intestinal flora (it will at least rebound), but I would be surprised if continuous long-term treatments with minocycline for acne don't cause more significant damage.

I think acne medicines are the devil, and the dermatologists who prescribe them are even worse.

Putting poison in th bodies of kids for vanity reasons is downright sick.

Kids are supposed to have zits. Doctors telling them they need to take all kinds of weird shit to get rid of them is criminal.

What's hellish is the psychological damage that terrible skin can have on a person at any age. Don't judge the person on the acne meds or the prescriber until you've had to live with the problem for years and had people staring at your face or have small children asking what's wrong with your skin. it's not a vanity thing. Using acne medication is an attempt to keep one's self-esteem intact.

i disagree - i had severe acne around 17-21 yrs old and it severely affected my self confidence and led to bouts of pretty intense depression sometimes. its easy to blow it off as "a few zits" until you have to wake up in the morning and have your face hurt form huge nodules, then walk out the door looking like you're a walking infectious disease.

once my acne cleared up (with the help of a dermatologist), my self confidence skyrocketed and i was much, much happier. my dermatologist made my quality of life inifintely better.

Just curious what the outcome was for your situation. I have a swimmer who has been on minocycline for about 2 months and is also struggling to hit times. Looking at possibile effects. Thanks for any input!

I think acne can be fixed a lot easier than people think.

I had terrible acne, like TERRIBLE, and I just started using clearasil/oxy pads every hour or so. I'd just rub it over my face to get the oil off, and that prevents a ton of breakouts. If you're going around with a ton of oil on your skin, it probably is going to give you a breakout.

also, dairy seems to be a trigger for a lot of people.

I was mino for awhile (probably a lot longer than I should have been) and didn't notice any performance issues. I ran my PR while on mino.

I was on mino for about 6 months, during the last month or so I noticed I felt greatly fatigued with all my runs/had poor performances. This may have been attributed by a touch training block, but shortly after I stopped taking it, I began to feel normal again.

I know a guy who took this stuff for acne in his late teens early twenties, and now has spots on his wisdom teeth, poor dude.

yeah that's tough, it's really not fair, no one should have to go through life with spots on their wisdom teeth

Took it 18ish months ago. At the time I PR'd in every event from 400m-5000m. Noticed no training problems. Didn't do the best job with my acne but did help a little