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Intracranial Pressure, Headaches & Excitotoxicity on Doxy or Mino?

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Posted 8/5/2012 9:09 PM (GMT 0)
Hi,
Is it possible to experience some intracranial pressure, headaches and excitotoxicity when starting Minocycline or Doxycycline?

Reason I ask is I had tried Minocycline a while back (for something other than lyme) and even though I felt physically much better, I had a ton of increased pressure in my head and what felt like overstimulation to the nerves in my head, particularly in the back of my head (cranial nerve area) and temporal lobes. This caused terrible anxiety and headaches and therefore was impossible to sick with.

Can anyone relate to this sort of reaction? Will all antibiotics do this or just the tetracycline family?

I am getting ready to start treatment for lyme but allergic to the penecillin family and get the above reaction with the tetracycline family. Am I crap out of luck?

Post Edited (AndyD81) : 8/5/2012 3:14:13 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 8/5/2012 10:54 PM (GMT 0)
Yes I believe that doxy has a warning about intracranial hypertension. Although headaches and head pressure are also common symptoms of Lyme and co-infections and are also common during a herx. You will need a good LLMD to help distinguish whether or not you are getting the pressure from a med side effect or from herxing.

Did you have Lyme symptoms at the time that you were taking minocycline and having the head pressure?
Posted 8/6/2012 1:59 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks for the reply. Yes I had lyme symptoms during the time I was taking the minocycline. I also already had the head pressure before taking the minocycline. It just got much worse when I started taking it.
With that said... You are right that it could have easily been a Herx reaction. But even still I tried cutting down the dose, then tried taking the reduced dose every other day but still it was pretty intense so I had to stop it. It really is unfortunate though cause I probably hadn't felt that good since i was 16 with respect to physical symptoms. I'm 31 now. It was the first time I didn't have that "sick feeling" and aches, pains, muscle problems, breathing, etc. all seemed much better.

Have you ever heard of people taking extra magnesium or OTC cough medications like Mucinex D to help minimize these symptoms? I read something that suggested that these two supplements can block the calcium influx into these nerve cells which sometimes happens during a Herx. I think the calcium ion channels and NMDA receptors can get overactived and cause this head pressure and overstimulation. Curious if you or anyone here has heard of this or tried these supplements with the antibiotic? Thanks again
Posted 8/6/2012 8:21 AM (GMT 0)
Well magnesium isn't usually taken WITH doxy at the same time because it makes it ineffective so that could be why it minimizes herx symptoms. However, I take HUGE doses of magnesium about 4-5 hours away from doxy to help with twitching and most of the time that does help for that purpose.

I haven't heard of using mucinex, but I have heard of using alka seltzer gold for herxing. Glutathione IV's help me tremendously and so do green drinks or products that contain chlorella. Chlorella helps bind to toxins and eliminate them from the body. I just like to be sure that I'm drinking it far from the antibiotic so that I'm not just eliminating all the meds I take.

I am also pretty sensitive to doxy. When I was on doxy alone at only 200mg I was herxing pretty badly. I am now on 400mg, but I'm taking it with Rifampin which lowers the drug's availability in the body and I'm not noticing as much of a reaction.

I actually think doxy is not being absorbed well at all right now for me. I used to get terrible blistering sunburns (when it was working and I was herxing). Now I'm not getting burnt at all even if I forget sunscreen so something is different.
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