Mentally Hijacked by Doxycycline

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
November 22, 2021 | 18 Comments

Comments

  1. Doxycycline has been authorised as an anti-malaria drug for more than 50 years. It is also prescribed to treat bacterial infections and skin disorders. An MHRA spokeswoman said they had reviewed the “suspected association between doxycycline and psychotic disorder” after the coroner’s report and work was “continuing”.

    Alana Cutland: Parents’ shock over malaria drug behind plane fall

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-54818652

    The parents of a student who fell from a plane after a psychotic reaction to an anti-malaria drug were “shocked” to find its side effects were “virtually undocumented”.

    Alana Cutland, 19, from Milton Keynes, died after the fall in July 2019 in Madagascar.

    A coroner has asked for a review of the information sent out with doxycycline.

    The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said it was gathering “further information”.

    https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2020-0151-Response-from-the-Medicines-Healthcare-Products-Regulatory-Agency_Redacted.pdf

    Overall, these spontaneous ADR reports provide limited evidence on which to base a thorough assessment of causality between doxycycline and psychotic reactions. While under-reporting is a common problem with spontaneous ADR reporting, given that in the context of malaria prophylaxis, doxycycline is often given to healthy people, it may be that we would expect to see more cases of a serious reaction like psychosis if it were a true ADR for doxycycline. In addition, there is no established biological mechanism to explain an association between doxycycline and psychotic reactions and there is little in the way of published literature suggesting a causal link, including a lack of any well-controlled studies.

    The CHM Pharmacovigilance Expert Advisory Group advised that overall, the evidence to support a causal association between doxycycline and psychotic disorder was limited considering the cumulative exposure to this drug in the UK which is likely to be in the order of tens of millions of people. The PEAG advised that prior to the possible addition of psychotic type reactions in the doxycycline product information, which may cause patient alarm, further data is needed to enable a more robust assessment. The EAG recommended that the marketing authorisation holder (MAH) for the brand-leader doxycycline product should be requested to propose how this additional data may be collected, for example by investigating the feasibility of conducting a study using electronic healthcare records which compares rates of psychotic reactions following doxycycline, with another antibiotic.

    Action being taken by the MHRA …

    • “In comparison to doxycycline recipients in the nondeployed cohort, mefloquine recipients were at a statistically significant lower risk for adjustment disorder, insomnia, anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, vertigo, and PTSD.” Table 4
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28077744/

      “Last, Nevin neglects to mention that the same study found that mefloquine reduced the risk of PTSD compared with doxycycline (odds ratio = 0.69, 95% confidence interval: 0.52, 0.91) among nondeployed service members [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28077744/].”
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29733346/

      “SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Matrix metalloproteinase-9 inhibition appears to attenuate memory consolidation. It could also be a target for blocking reconsolidation. Here, we test this hypothesis in human threat conditioning. We find that doxycycline has no specific impact on a reminded cue, but confers a global reduction in extinction learning and threat learning beyond the clearance of the drug. This may point toward a more long-lasting impact of doxycycline treatment on memory plasticity.”
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31615840/

  2. MHRA: “suspected association between doxycycline and psychotic disorder”.

    I’d rather be ‘alarmed’ than HARMED.
    Why not recommend that prescribers are aware of this concern and increase reporting. How is an acute confusional state as an ADR to doxycycline to be differentiated from ‘First Episode Psychosis’. In the tragedy that destroyed the life and health of our loved one: an SSRI (inappropriately prescribed) resulted in acute, intense AKATHISIA which was misdiagnosed as ‘psychotic depression’.

    “Psychotic depression is vanishingly rare compared with treatment induced akathisia”.

    To accumulate further evidence for Doxycicline induced ‘Psychosis’ it would be
    necessary to avoid misdiagnosis as a Psychotic presentation, which will be followed by inappropriate detention, forced drugging, physical, psychological and emotional injury and a kaleidoscopic collection of Psychiatry labels for Life.

    Why not insist that all who are labelled as first episode psychosis have a detailed prescription dug history entered into a centralised, anonymous, computer data base held by an MHRA more committed to patient safety? If all those so-labelled had an identifiable history of doxycycline ingestion, SSRI/SNRI ‘Rx’ (or dose/product change) and/or other akathisia inducing/neurotoxic drug ingestion identified: further evidence of association may increase awareness of this ADR. It may also reduce unforgivable psychiatric misdiagnosis and subsequent loss of all human rights.

    The use of the term ‘psychotic disorder’ by the MHRA surely invites misdiagnosis?

    • “To accumulate further evidence for Doxycicline induced ‘Psychosis’ it would be
      necessary to avoid misdiagnosis as a Psychotic presentation, which will be followed by inappropriate detention, forced drugging, physical, psychological and emotional injury and a kaleidoscopic collection of Psychiatry labels for Life.

      Why not insist that all who are labelled as first episode psychosis have a detailed prescription dug history entered into a centralised, anonymous, computer data base held by an MHRA more committed to patient safety?”

      Do do this will require psychiatry to admit what it resolutely refuse’s because it knows all the harm it has created along with pharma. Everyone in a psych ‘hospital’ is on antipsychotics no matter what the diagnosis and most are on high dose and have akathisia – this is a major human rights crime going back a long way.

      The agencies set-pup to over see psych hospitals, to date, have only covered up what is happening – they are not exposing and shutting down these operations which lead to this:

      https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/sandwell/west-bromwich/2021/03/26/man-absconded-from-mental-health-facility-before-being-found-dead-on-motorway/

      • “Everyone in a psych ‘hospital’ is on antipsychotics no matter what the diagnosis and most are on high dose and have AKATHISIA”. Press Report: ‘HE WAS PACING AROUND’ —–(my emphasis).

        • “Mrs Perry said Hallam Street Hospital is not a psychiatric intensive care unit, that there are patients who choose to go there and those who are detained for treatment but it is “absolutely not” a prison.”

          Also worth noting from the article ‘it’s “absolutely not” a prison’ but negate to inform the public there are two locked doors to the outside world. After being informed of this recent atrocity I sent the CQC and the trusts governance support manager a link to akathisia on here and this quote:

          “as David Foster Wallace put it before he died:

          “The person in whom its invisible agony reaches an unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will jump from the window of a burning high-rise… The terror of falling from a great height is still just as great… It’s not desiring the fall, it’s the terror of the flames… You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to understand a terror beyond falling”.

          They have a CQC report being published on 2nd Dec I bet they will be given a good rating.

  3. Chris ,It’s going to be ‘interesting’ to see how Austria enforces it’s mandate that all citizens are to be vaccinated starting in Feb 22.
    Will they take lessons from psych hell holes on how to pin people down and forcibly inject them… In Russia dissidents are forced into Covid ‘hospitals’ and forced to ‘accept’ vaccines. It’s not a huge step to ‘diagnosing’ people who decline to be vaccinated as mentally ill. Potential harms from enforced vaccs plus harms from enforced psych meds – in a totalitarian nightmare in a world led by psychopaths such as the Austrian chancellor who wants ‘turn the screws’ on unvaccinated citizens. The police would always be willing to assist as shown by the often heavy handed surveillance and fining of citizens in UK during ‘lockdowns’ and firing on and water hosing of protesters throughout Europe presently.

  4. Not so long ago, certainly it increased after the menace Tom Burns psych persuaded the government to introduce ”treatment’ in the community , forced ie depot injections, people in areas with independant ‘user-survivor’ networks set up safe houses where refusniks were looked after by friends. A few psychs would give advice off the record on meds but many were knowledgeable anyway. . The nasty campaign by politicians and their allies against people who refuse vaccs scapegoats and set citizens against citizens so we take out eye off the way more and more rights are being abused – in our name. If it goes too far it’s likely no-vacc safe houses will be set up and for sure more false proofs of being vacced will become a more lucrative business than it already is.. It is sad that groups who know first hand what discrimination can lead to are keeping pretty silent about the creeping violations . It;s not just a question of taking or not a vaccine but of to some extent grieving as well as resisting with protests and riots all across Europe against the undermining of democracry.

  5. These people urgently need to consider Lyme disease or other infections and Google “Lyme herx reactions” or “Doxycycline herx reactions.”

    The first lady said she had a rash from a possibly a tick bite. I had this in 2016-2017. If you have Lyme disease, and you take medicine to treat Lyme disease, including doxycycline, you are going to have a Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction (a “herx”). It’s NOT the doxycycline itself, or whatever else you are taking – IT’S THE INFECTION ITSELF dying off and causing a flare. Not a doctor, I just personally struggled through Lyme disease and the 50 or so symptoms it was causing me that doctors could not figure out. I finally was cured after combo treatment of antibiotics and powerful herbs.Herxes can be extreme, a lot worse than the infection you may or may not have even realized you had to begin with.

    • These are not Herx reactions. Nothing like Herx Reactions. I can say this having known Andrew Herxheimer, the son of the original Herx well. They happen in completely healthy people given this drug for mild acne, or prophylactically – that is who have nothing wrong with them. Doxycycline inhibits serotonin reuptake and this is the likeliest cause. Perhaps though you think all suicides and homicides on SSRIs are Herx reactions as well

      David

      • David, No! MMP9 Inhibit, Microglia Inhibit, Synaptic pruning Inhibit, Neurogenesis Inhibit, It is consistent with the mechanism of action characteristic of dissociators and hallucinogens.

      • Abstract “… In reviewing this field, it is argued that #minocycline is actually probing and modulating a deeply evolved and intricate system wherein psychosocial stimuli sculpt the circuitry of the “social brain” underlying adult behavior and personality. Furthermore, this system can generate psychiatric morbidity that is not dependent on genetic variation. …”
        https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33448432/

    • Lyme treatment: 1st Doxy -> Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome
      Acne treatment: 1st Doxy Mino -> 2nd Isotretinoin “related” poisoning symptoms
      Malaria prevention: 1st Doxy -> 2nd Mefloquine “related” poisoning symptoms

  6. Thank you so much for writing this. I am usually a very happy up beat person. I am a 25 year old woman. I meditate and exercise daily and try my best to stick to a holistic life style. I entered a job which burnt me out very quickly, I quit the job and went home to gather my energy back and ground myself back to health. I had a stye come up on my eye (something I’ve never had before) but I know they can be due to stress which makes sense. I usually try my best to not go to the doctors and try every way possible to self/naturally heal before using modern medicine. For the first time in a long time i contacted my doctor for fearing I had an infection and I was prescribed Doxycycline. Day 1 of taking this medicine I started to feel sick, nauseous and very anxious. That night I couldn’t sleep ATALL and was feeling very low with intrusive thought starting to bubble through my mind. Very dark thoughts of wanting to hurt myself and feeling generally depressed. I didn’t get to sleep until 6am. I woke up at 12:30 feeling very low with no energy at all. I was feeling again nauseous and kept going hot and cold. At this point I just thought I had caught something or managed to somehow gain depression over night. I knew in my soul and spirit I didn’t feel okay. I knew in myself that this weren’t ME!!!! I looked to the left of me and there they were, the pack of doxycycline staring right back at me. My gut feelings instantly told me to research the side effects on Google. To which I found hundreds of comments from people and parents saying the EXACT same thing to what I’ve been experiencing. This drug is DANGEROUS and should be taken off the market. I’ve never trusted big pharma but my god, I don’t trust it at all now. It sickens me that these doctors just dish out these tablets to people and young teenagers. Nothing on the leaflet says about any of the severity of these side affects. This drug is playing with peoples lives. I was intuitive enough to pick up on these dark tablets but for the teenagers and people who are much more vulnerable and trust in these doctors, I’m scared that some will have no hope or even realise that these are the causes of their mental health deteriorating. I’m going to spread as much awareness about this as I can!!! Stay strong people, always follow your gut instincts and please try your best to self heal first x

  7. I was recently prescribed Doxycycline for a UTI – 7 days – 100 mg – 2x a day. I am totally balanced, healthy and fit with no history of depression.

    Day 2 I felt a bit down – so took myself to the gym. Day 3 I couldn’t stop crying and found it difficult to leave the house. Day 4 I was anxious and messaged people close to me with the most bizarre messages – I have re-read them since and they are so not me. Day 5 I stood on the platform of a busy station and felt a sudden urge to jump in front of a fast train.

    I have NEVER been depressed and I have NEVER had suicidal thoughts. Day 6 I researched the medication and stopped it. I have spoken to my GP who tells me that this is a side effect that can happen (but apparently rare….although researching online I am not so sure how rare it actually is!). He has said I should feel back to normal within 14-21 days….I feel considerably better a week after stopping the medication but far from okay.

    I think the potential mental health impact of these drugs needs to be clearly stated and patients informed of potential side effects prior to taking them. I would never take this medication again.

  8. I had this same thing happen on Doxycycline and will never take it again. I had a chest infection. Day one I took it and I don’t remember much happening. Day two I was overcome by emptiness and sadness. Day 3 my mind went to the pointlessness of my existence. The burden I was to everyone else. I walked into the pharmacy that prescribed this medicine and said “Hi, I’m not mentally Ill. I was prescribed these and now I feel depressed and suicidal” the pharmacist looked at me and said “Well it’s not the medicine”. I left immediately and in a daze drove to the railway station round the corner, and decided I was going to throw myself in front a train. I sat on the station and saw one coming, I thought that I’d watch this one and gauge the speed etc. The train pulled in and it had a young female driver and families got off, this is not what I’d expected to see. I’d imaging just a dead looking, empty, metal carriage. Something clicked in my head and I realised how awful and selfish this would be for me to go ahead with. I abandoned my plan, devastated but thought I should try stopping the medication immediately. I did and I was back to my normal non-suicidal self in 2 days. Never again will I touch the stuff whether scientific studies support my experience or not. I know what happened, as do those close to me. Hope this helps others who are going through any frighting experiences on it. It does end.

  9. I had just started doxycyline this week, and on the 3rd day, I just found myself binge watching and crying over youtube videos which is very unlike me. I didn’t have the drive to exercise, which I usually do twice daily, ang just started felling down generally, which led me to this thread.

Leave a Reply