This info comes from the Sept./Oct. 2007 issue of Arthritis Today from "your Health {experts on call}. (Page 63)
Q: I have been taking the antibiotic minocycline as a disease-modifying drug for the past two months to treat my RA. Is it safe for long-term use? Will it affect my health or my liver?
A: Minocycline, a drug similar to the antibiotic tetracycline, generally is considered to be one of the safer disease-modifying and anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDS). The most come side effects with using minocycline for three months or so are upset stomach, dizziness, discolored fingernails and rashes or dark pigmentation of the skin-especially sun-exposed areas. It can cause liver damage, but only in very rare cases. Your doctor should be examining you every few months and sending you for lab tests to make sure minocycline is working for your RA and not causing side effects.
Minocycline is effective in about 60 percent of people with RA who use it. However, it often is not prescribed because it does not have FDA labeling approved for this use, and it is a relatively weak DMARD compared with methotrexate, leflunomide(Arava), or the biologics(Enbrel, Humira, Kineret, Orencia, Remicade and Rituxan).
It isn't the antibiotic properties, but the effects on the immune system and the ability to inhibit enzymes that break down cartilage and connective tissue that make minocycline(and other tetracycline drugs) so effective.
Thought I should post this because it's working for me and perhaps this would be useful for others considering it when approaching their doctors.
Yet they prescribe the biologics for off label use.
I'm stunned that Artritis Today did this much sort of pro-AP - they are usually 'we have newer, better drugs nowadays'.
Hugs,
Pip who lives in sunny LA and has no skin pigmentation yet. LOL
I think it's amazing that they know why it works, and its rate of efficacy,