Doxycycline causing anxiety/depression?

Hello and welcome to HealingWell,

I am sorry for the edit but discussions of suicide are not allowed in the forums.

Doxycycline can  cause  agitation or restlessness, anxiety, depression, and mood changes from what I know re this medication. ^{Reference: University of Oxford/CDC}

Please call your prescribing physician to see if you need to continue this type of medication and perhaps another med would be ordered for you. 

I had an allergic reaction to a medication which my Dr. felt would not cause my problem and I was instructed to continue taking it.  2 more days and increase in the  allergic reaction put me in the ER.  Be your own best advocate.

Take care and good luck.

Kitt

Wow Kitt I had no idea doxycycline could do this and ive taken it last year as a precaution after a procedure and I cant recall if it caused a spike in my anxiety...it was exactly a year ago today as a matter of fact.

Mcs I would definitely talk to my doc about any alternative My doc gave me a med recently that made me feel weird and I bugged her until she gave me something that I had already taken before. I agree with Kitt you must be your best own advocate.

Hey MCS, I was absolutely shocked when I just looked at the forums and read your post. I just started taking doxycline or however u spell it last week as well. I took it because the doc said supposedly I had the flu like a week earlier lol.

Now I've been sick for the last 3-4 weeks and have been avoiding going to the doc so its kind of hard for me to exactly pinpoint exactly if it had an effect, but reading your post is making me think that it definetly increased my anxiety. I'm on 50 mg of zoloft a day and honestly the first 2-3 days that I was on this medication was ridiculous. At work I couldn't concentrate, I was completely zoning out and couldn't even do simple tasks. I was just sitting there with absolutely no interest in anything....I thought it was just my anxiety getting worse and never thought to think it could be a reaction to the antibiotic.

I'm no doctor and I haven't read up on the symptoms of taking an antidepressent with the antibiotic, I can just speak from my experience in the last week. Know that you're not alone and that I too was having serious problems the last few days. I don't like going into detail into exactly how bad my anxiety got, but just know that I too was having thoughts that were the same way. Not caring or even acknowledging friends, family, etc for the last week or so. It got pretty bad....but today was a decent day and saturday will be my last day taking the antibiotic so I look foward to being able to get off of it and see how I feel then. I'll keep you posted to how it goes

Just wanted to bump this back up to the top and let mcs know how I was doin after I'm off the antibiotic.....much better. I don't know if it was from the antibiotic or not, but I'm 100% better then I was when I was on it. I could barely function at work and focusing was downright impossible. It was really wild, it could have just been a bad week for me because I was sick too so I'm not going to blame Doxycycline totally, but I deifnetly don't want to take it ever again. Thank god the flu/cold is gone and hopefully it stays that way

Oops...hit the -per-post limit...continued here:

And, this is backed up by all sorts of other studies that confirm that the HT1A receptor plays a critical role in stressful situation behavior, etc.:


5-HT1A autoreceptor levels determine vulnerability to stress and
response to antidepressants
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2941196/pdf/nihms223457.pdf


So clearly a subset of us are super-sensitive to doxycycline, because it both tampers with the HT1A receptors in our already sensitive(by genetics, or early life exposure/experiences) brains as well as disrupts the flora of the digestive tracet(which is known to have a very high serotonin fraction).


Definitely some nasty stuff for the wrong person. Once my anxiety calmed a bit today, I started drinking lots of water and also got some good, intense exercise and it seems to have taken the edge off. I can only find one source(wikipedia) that notes the half-life of Doxy at 18-22 hours, so as much as I accumulated, it will take a while to even get back to zero - assuming it hasn't made any sort of permanent changes of sorts. Most other reports I read of people with similar reactions say they don't "feel" normal for weeks, if not a month or more, often. But, they often took it for longer than I have.

I wish you all luck, and have made a comprehensive report to my medical professional in hopes that this gets filtered up through the medical community as a potential side-effect of this obviously well-intended medication.

My daughter is almost 17 and has been on doxycycline for several months now. She is perscribed 100mg in am and 100mg in pm. It has helped the acne quite a bit.

The past 2 months she has been extremely down in the dumps with complaints of hopelessness and not being able to focus. We were thinking it is the tremendous academic pressure she's under during this stressful Jr. year. Also,she has been taking the ACT and SAT tests. Last night, she was crying and saying she feels like a failure and has no drive. Before I booked her an appointment, I decided to investigate if it could possibly be the medication and was completely shocked with what I've been reading on here about the correlation between depression and doxycycline. I am taking her off tonight, and have a call into the dermatologist. I also am taking her to her pediatrician tomm. My biggest concern now is how long these feelings may take to go away once off the medicine.

I am so worried about her and want her to be back to her fun-loving self.... this is heartbreaking.

I began taking Doxycycline when I was 21 years old for acne/ rosacea. It was around this time that I also developed generalized and social anxiety. At the time I had no idea what was going on. I honestly thought that I was going crazy because I had never felt that way before. I did review the side effects with the doctor and I was concerned about side effects but was basically informed that the most I would suffer would be a stomache ache. Anxiety was not listed as a side effect and to be honest I didn't really understand what I was experiencing - I wouldn't even know to label it as anxiety. I took the Doxycycline for three years and it did clear up my acne. Although my symptoms have improved with therapy I still suffer from anxiety 13 years later. I always wondered whether Doxycycline was the culprit and triggered the anxiety because my symptoms began around the same time I started the medication but really I always attributed the anxiety to genetics plus personal issues and things going on at the time of the onset of symptoms. Three years ago I revisited the issue because I had a severe skin flare up and my doctor prescribed Doxycycline. My anxiety went into overdrive - I hadn't experienced anxiety like that since my symptoms first began. I went off the medication immediately and began to feel better right away. A previous reply stated that some of us are by way of genetics especially sensitive to this medication and are predisposed to anxiety if we take it. I believe this is true of me - I had always felt a bit anxious in certain social situations and was prone to worry and some obsessive thinking in my teens. However, it was never debilitating and I was able to enjoy life. The anxiety that I suffer with has been extremily debilitating. I've tried talk therapy (CBT), Zoloft, meditation classes and even acupuncture and while I've improved my brain is just not the same. I hate thinking that it's all because of a anti-biotic that I took to get rid of some acne but the more posts that I read the more I'm coming to the realization that this is the culprit or at least a major factor in my development of this disorder. I think that it triggered the anxiety (something that I was maybe genetically prone to) and because I took it for so long it set changes in motion in my brain (basically killed my ability to produce serotonin and caused me to develop negative patterns of thought) that seem to be irreversable to some extent. Is that kind of damage possible if one takes it for 3 years? To all of you who only took it for a month or two I think that you'll be able to recover from this. I wish I had stop taking it much much sooner. As for me I am looking into taking legal action. Based on my own experiences and that of others the risks need to be investigated and listed on the list of side effects. If I had known that this medication would effect anything having to do with the brain (besides a common headache as is listed as one of the side effects now) I would have never taken it. Best of luck to all of you.

Bereft,

I am so sorry to hear of your loss. That is a devastating story...(I looked it up as posted in the depression forum)

I wish you the best in continuing to get the word out regarding this drug and the possible negative side-effects it can have.

You may post your experience and opinions, but we can't have petitions here, as this is a peer support group, and as such, carries no polictical agenda. (please see rules)

You are otherwise welcomed and encouraged to post anytime.

Scaredy Cat

doxycline - our 13 year old confident and happy son started taking it for acne 3 weeks ago. the past 2 weeks he seemed quieter than normal, had several violent nightmares , then started being teary and feeling hopeless and no confidence. My husband and I were devastated at seeing him like this. Trying to work out what couold possibly be causing it. then i realized he had been taking antibiotics for about the same time and i googled doxycline and depression and there it was. We have absolutely no doubt this caused our sons sudden decline. We stopped it immediately and now 4 days later, can see him improving. It has given us such a fright that a simple antiobiotic can cause such damage.  

I had a staph infection on my leg. After 35 days on 3 different antibiotics my doctor finally biopsied the wound which was large deep and disgusting. It was MRSA....just lovely. I'm allergic to cipro, levaquin and all their cousins....so she gave me doxycycline. It knocked out the infection...finally. I was on meds for 45 days. Doxycycline 500mg 3x a day....I was anxious and depressed but I don't know if it was situational from what I had been through or the medicine. Thank goodness its over tho I have a terrible scar to remind me.

I am posting on here because I have used doxocylcin for only 6 days following a sinus infection that ive now had for almost 2 weeks. from personal experience I can say I will never use this again and am now on amoxicillin.

These tablets caused me to feel:
very anxious, like i was in a constant nightmare and felt scared and worried constantly,dizziness like the room was spinning,and had no interest in anything. I finally spoke to my mum who read these comments below and that's when we realised it was the tablets that was making me feel like this.

I just want to feel how I did before, and it should take up to 48 hours to get out my system, but my doctor will speak on Thursday to me to see.

Usually a positive person and laid back but these tablets made me feel the lowest I've ever felt in my whole life and have never cried as much!! :s

Can now say I cannot wait to go to the gym, do light exercise and get it out my system as soon as poss.. :)

Future reference for anyone, do double check before and if you do feel like that then do talk to someone rather than worry.it helps a million.they do finally understand why you feel like that.

Hi Ros82,

I am sorry to hear of this issue! I think that it is proof...from so many posts here, that what you are experiencing can certainly be a s/e for some people...after taking antibiotics.

Not everyone reacts in the same way...which is why your doctor may not attribute it to your med...

...and certainly, being sick can also bring on anxiety issues and symptoms...

...but to be on the safe side, it was wise to get off of that particular Rx.

I do hope however, that you were given an alternative antibiotic? It is not advised to just stop one altogether...as your infection could actually get partially resistant, come back and be worse.

I hope that you can work this all out with your doctor, that you heal from your illness...and that your anxiety goes and does not return!

Well wishes!!

Scaredy Cat