What is the Difference Between Doxycycline and Minocycline

Madhu

2 years ago

The key difference between doxycycline and minocycline is that doxycycline is effective against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, whereas minocycline mainly fights against gram-positive bacteria.

Doxycycline and minocycline are tetracycline antibiotics that can fight bacteria in our bodies. For both medications, the dose per day is 100mg.

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Doxycycline
3. What is Minocycline
4. Similarities – Doxycycline and Minocycline
4. Doxycycline vs Minocycline in Tabular Form
5. Summary – Doxycycline vs Minocycline

What is Doxycycline?

Doxycycline is a type of tetracycline antibiotic that can fight bacteria in the body. Many different bacterial infections, including urinary tract infections, intestinal infections, respiratory system infections, eye infections, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, etc., can be treated using this drug. Sometimes, it can also be used to treat malaria, anthrax, infections caused by mites, ticks, and lice.

Figure 01: Doxycycline

There are some important considerations about this medication. If someone is allergic to tetracycline antibiotics, he or she mustn’t take this drug. Also, children under age eight should not take this drug unless it is essential because this drug can cause permanent yellowing in the teeth of children. Furthermore, using this drug during pregnancy can cause disorders in the unborn baby. Along with its desired effects, sometimes doxycycline can cause side effects such as blistering of the skin, bloating, chills, clay-coloured stool, constipation, cough, dark coloured urine, and decreased apatite.

What is Minocycline?

Minocycline is a type of tetracycline antibiotic that can fight bacteria in our body. We can use this medication to treat many different infections caused by bacteria, including urinary tract infections, respiratory infections, skin infections, severe acne, chlamydia, and tick fever. It mainly comes in the form of capsules. Moreover, minocycline can treat acne on our skin by both killing bacteria and by reducing inflammation. However, it can treat only active acne, not acne scars.

Figure 02: The Chemical Structure of Minocycline Hydrochloride Compound

However, there can be some side effects of using minocycline as a medicine. Some of the side effects that can commonly occur are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, feeling of spinning, etc. Furthermore, there can be some long-term effects of minocycline, which may include vestibular disturbance, candida infection, gastrointestinal disturbance, cutaneous symptoms, and intracranial hypertension.

Besides, there are records of increased weight gain during the treatment with minocycline. Patients who used this medication gained a lot more weight compared to the patients with mild to moderate disease. Moreover, males gained more weight compared to females.

As an important consideration, it is advised not to lie down soon after taking minocycline medication because it can cause irritations in the esophagus, which can lead to pain. Therefore, we need to stay up for some time after taking this medication. Moreover, we need to avoid taking antacids, laxatives, multivitamins, or supplements at least for two hours after taking this medicine.

What are the Similarities Between Doxycycline and Minocycline?

Doxycycline and minocycline are tetracycline antibiotics.
Both are brand and generic available.
The dose per day is 100 mg for both medications.
They are effective against gram-positive bacteria.