Gaining weight on Doxycycline/Prescribed drugs?

I started researching today to see if there was a link between taking Doryx for the past month and gaining almost 5 lbs. I workout everyday doing high cardio mostly Insanity workouts mixed in with Bikram. I have never had a problem maintaining my weight. My daughter grabbed my stomach the other day a stomach that was never there to grab a month ago and I just thought well I'm 30 now maybe it is going to be more difficult then it has been in the past. So happy to see this forum because as others have mentioned it is not listed as a side effect. Obviously after reading all these responses it needs to be. I will not be taking another Doryx pill after this confirmation and fingers crossed the stomach goes back to normal. Thanks to all that have posted about their experience!

I gained on Prednisone but that is to be expected. I lost all of the weight once I got below 50 mg a day. I have also gained on Remicade but I was underweight and not absorbing food until the Remicade started working. I hate that weight gain but at least it means I am healthier.

Prescribed doxycycline for prostatitis. No changes in diet or exercise. Gained 7 lbs in 1 week. Water? Fat? Not sure but that's a shocking gain! Something is going on. They do feed antibiotics to livestock to fatten them up, after all.

There's an awful lot of first time posters in this thread, all saying the same thing...

ETA: Crud. Zombie thread got me.

I was on it for ~5 months. I was pregnant for most of it so I was gaining weight but I didn't gain in excess and it didn't prevent me from losing it postpartum.

theclementinedarling wrote: »

I've been on doxy hyclate 100mg for over 5 years. I take it for adult acne issues. I'm overweight and know it is because of food intake/not enough exercise. For the last 60 days I have eaten Whole30 (it's a no dairy, no sugar, no gluten, no corn, no legume, no soy, no processed food lifestyle) and worked out. I haven't lost any weight. I've gotten some info. from others that it may be hormonal based. Is Doxy making it hard for me to lose weight? Any thoughts?

This is an old thread. You might want to start your own. I've not taken the medication you mentioned, but am on three meds that are known to cause weight gain. I find if I'm not counting calories and eat according to my appetite I gain rapidly. If I count calories I lose. It's easy to blame medication for weight gain, but when it comes down to it we gain from eating too much and not moving enough. You mention what you are eating, but weight loss comes down to how many calories you are eating.

I experienced weight gain and distended belly around the time I was on doxy. Didn't put the evidence together until I stopped it, stomach flattened out, started it again and got bloated again. A quick Google search revealed this telling research article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4068504/
I personally have gained 5 lbs on it. When I stop taking it, the bloating and distended belly went completely away in 2 weeks, after that it seemed to take some work with calorie cutting and increasing work outs and I've so far only lost a couple of those pounds I gained. I probably will stop taking doxy long term and only take it for a few days when I get a really bad breakout.
Bottom line: medicine research is just now starting to understand the significance of gut bacteria effects on digestive health and metabolism. This has not yet reached mainstream guidelines for pharmacist and doctor knowledge. It is known that doxy kills good bacteria along with the bad kind, and a loss of good bacteria can cause weight gain. The NIH study found that 25% of the participants gained weight while on doxycycline.

To those who say you don't gain weight from Doxycycline, this from Journal Watch:


June 5, 2014

Weight Gain from Antibiotic Treatment: Not Just in Animals!

Thomas Glück, MD reviewing Angelakis E et al. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 2014 Jun .

One quarter of patients receiving long-term doxycycline and hydroxychloroquine treatment for Q-fever endocarditis showed abnormal weight gain associated with significant alterations of the intestinal flora.

Use of antibiotics such as chlortetracycline — even in subtherapeutic doses — promotes growth in livestock through increased food intake and weight gain. This effect is explained by alterations of the animals' gut microbiome and contributes to the abundant use of antibiotics in factory farming. Previous uncontrolled studies have suggested that weight gain secondary to antibiotic treatment also occurs in humans; now, researchers in France have investigated the issue more systematically.

The researchers followed 48 patients who received long-term therapy with doxycycline (100 mg twice daily) and hydroxychloroquine (600 mg daily) for treatment of Q fever endocarditis between 2008 and 2011. Thirty-four individuals consulting in an outpatient unit who had not received antibiotics during the preceding 12 months served as controls.

Eleven (23%) of the patients receiving antibiotics showed abnormal weight gain (4% to 18% increase in body-mass index [BMI]) — an effect not observed in any of the controls. In the antibiotic recipients, total fecal bacterial counts declined significantly and in proportion to duration of therapy; the effect was primarily attributable to doxycycline and not to hydroxychloroquine. Concentrations of firmicutes, bacteroidetes, and lactobacilli were all significantly lower in antibiotic recipients than in controls.

COMMENT
It appears that in humans, too, weight gain has to be acknowledged as a side effect of antibiotic therapy. Like researchers before them, the authors demonstrated an altered intestinal microbiome in patients receiving antibiotics; however, they did not correlate these findings with weight gain in individual patients. Further investigations are needed to clarify this point, to explain why an increase in BMI occurs in only some patients on long-term antibiotic treatment, and to determine whether the effect is reversible.

I gained 20lbs in 2wks and I workout hard 6dpw. I have weighed myself on 3 diff medical office and gym scales. How depressing!!! Medical journals and studies are now finding this is true but you will find conflicting info if you Google it and Dr.’s aren’t necessarily up to speed about it.

I am so pissed as I am not normally prescribed this but had to avoid pneumonia after 13 days of the plague going around. It also caused increased hunger and desire for sugar as well. I was down to my lowest weight in 4 years and this has ruined all that progress. Much of it showed up as belly fat too. I never gained weight like this from other 10 day prescribed antibiotics. I don’t take them unless absolutely necessary.

Apparently I have to take probiotics for 3 months to get my gut bacteria back to normal. I wonder what my sports nutritionist/dietician will say. She has a ton of degrees but not unlike the medical field they all have differing opinions.

I am proof of weight gain! I may keep you posted how long it takes to get rid of it and what measures I take. Feel free to friend me as well. I work fiercely in the gym and have a trainer. Bikini season is creeping fast and I was trying to lose 4-8lbs a week. I should take pix in my updates—yuck but will be visual proof and a reminder to refuse Doxy if ever prescribed again.

I just turned 18 and I’ve had problems with skin infections for like 4 years and my dermatologist put my on this medication and I used to weigh 130 and over 5 months I was at 160 because of it my infection was gone but I had gained all that weight but after I was off of it for about 2 months all the weight came off.Sad part is I have the same infection again so I am back on it and have been back on it for about 2 months and I have gained 10 pounds back already.Just know the weight comes off eventually.And I have always been very active and I counted calories while gaining weight and I burned way more and still gained and was only on that medication and I still gained weight so it has to be that.Please get back to me id like to hear more about other people on it.

I’m so grateful I found this thread. I’ve lost 33lbs in the last year. 20 in the last 6 months, I know how to manage my calories. I started Doxy 1.5 weeks ago and immediately saw the scale go up a flew lbs. I am now 5lbs heavier while eating 1550 calories a day and working out. I’ve stopped doxy (just for acne) and I’m hoping I can drop the weight quickly.