what is the strongest antibiotic for acne?

[minitor2]

what one will cure all types of acne and at what dose and for how long? cause i cant afford goddamn accutane and its pissing me off. i cant take it anymore. b5 tea tre oil everything sucks ineed some hardcore ideas. noting topical even comes close to working. thanks guys

minitor2

[ironfist]

Retin-A is pretty good but accutane is the hands down winner

[WI]

Originally posted by ironfist
Retin-A is pretty good but accutane is the hands down winner

Retin-A is definitely strong, first few times i applied it to my face/shoulders I actually peeled, but with that away went my acne!

[hhajdo]

IMO, you should first try some of the topicals recommended.. If a single doesn't work you can combine two (or more) which work via different mechanisms...
Sometimes it takes several weeks to notice improvement...
You can find more info in these articles:

http://www.skinfo.com/topics.cfm?TopicID=1
http://www.jfponline.com/content/200...0103_00043.asp

In some studies I've seen Azithromycin was slightly better than some other antibiotics....


Azithromycin for the treatment of acne.

Fernandez-Obregon AC.

Hudson Dermatology & Skin Center, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA.

BACKGROUND: Acne affects a large number of young adults, including women, who often present with facial as well as truncal involvement. Systemic antimicrobial agents currently used for the reduction of inflammatory papules and cysts require frequent administration and are sometimes associated with uncomfortable side-effects contributing to a decrease in compliance. METHODS: Ninety-nine episodes of inflammatory acne in 79 patients treated with oral antimicrobial agents were studied retrospectively over a period of 46 weeks. Patients were treated with tetracycline, erythromycin, minocycline, and doxycycline, the most commonly prescribed oral antimicrobials used to treat acne. Individuals that were unable to tolerate this therapy or had failed conventional therapy were treated with the azalide antibiotic azithromycin, given in a single oral 250-mg dose three times a week. The other agents were administered daily in divided doses as is current practice. Patients were also on topical care. RESULTS: The efficacy and reported side-effects were examined for all agents. Significant improvement was noted in 4 weeks. All agents were effective in reducing inflammatory lesions and improving acne. Azithromycin produced a slightly higher percentage of patients with a greater than 80% reduction in their inflammatory acne lesions (85.7%) vs. an average of 77.1% for all other agents. All differences observed were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: The results show that azithromycin is a safe and effective alternative in the treatment of inflammatory acne with few side-effects and good compliance, and suggest the need for further investigation with a clinical trial that will compare the long-term efficacy and tolerability.

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J Chemother 1998 Dec;10(6):469-73 Related Articles, Links


Azithromycin compared with minocycline in the treatment of acne comedonica and papulo-pustulosa.

Gruber F, Grubisic-Greblo H, Kastelan M, Brajac I, Lenkovic M, Zamolo G.

Department of Dermatology, Clinical Hospital Center, Rijeka, Croatia.

This open study was conducted in 72 outpatients with acne vulgaris, to compare the clinical efficacy and tolerability of azithromycin and minocycline. Azithromycin was administered as a single oral dose (500 mg/day) for 4 days in four cycles every 10 days and minocycline was administered 100 mg daily for 6 weeks. Improvement was assessed 6 weeks after initiation of treatment with a four-graded scale. A satisfactory clinical response was observed in 75.8% of the patients treated with azithromycin and in 70.5% of those treated with minocycline. There were no significant differences between these two acne treatments in terms of reduction of the number of lesions (p> 0.05). Both agents were well tolerated and mild side effects were reported in 10.3% of azithromycin and 11.7% of minocycline treated patients. We conclude that azithromycin is at least as clinically effective and well tolerated as minocycline as treatment of facial comedonic and papulopustular acne.

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J Dermatol 2001 Jan;28(1):1-4 Related Articles, Links


Azithromycin monthly pulse vs daily doxycycline in the treatment of acne vulgaris.

Parsad D, Pandhi R, Nagpal R, Negi KS.

Department of Dermatology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.

Acne vulgaris is a common skin disease seen primarily in adolescent and young adults. As the treatment involves long term therapy with antibiotics, an agent with a long half life can be very useful in increasing the compliance. To evaluate the role of a monthly dose of azithromycin and compare it with daily doxycycline, we conducted this randomized comparative study. Sixty patients with moderate to severe acne were randomly assigned to two treatment groups, A & B. Patients in group A received 100 mg doxycycline daily in addition to topical 0.05% tretinoin cream, whereas patients in group B were given 500 mg azithromycin once a day for four days per month along with 0.05% topical tretinoin for a total of 12 weeks. Of the 60 patients, 22 in group A and 28 in group B were evaluated. The monthly dose of azithromycin was found to be as effective as daily doxycycline on a pure protocol basis and statistically significantly better than doxycycline by intention to treat analysis.

[LAWNSAVER]

B-5 at high doses worked better than Accutane for my wife! She takes 7.5 grams ED.

[DirkMoneyshot]

Azelaic Acid at 20% cream I think is something you could look at.

[minitor2]

hhajdo your the man

minitor2

[AP2]

Cephalexin 500mg "Keflex" 3xdaily works very well. It is easy and cheap to obtain.

[Riki]

Donyt use antibiotics for acne. Ya can mess up ya system seriously, it doesnt kill only the bacts that cause the acne also the good ones, and if ya oversensitive ya can go into shock, so check ya doc first.

Grtz

[JCalvin619]

Originally posted by Riki
Donyt use antibiotics for acne. Ya can mess up ya system seriously, it doesnt kill only the bacts that cause the acne also the good ones, and if ya oversensitive ya can go into shock, so check ya doc first.

Grtz

I've never heard of that, could you explain more.

[biggrnu]

apparently there is a topical type accutane....isotrex. i ran across it researching our damn problems!!!!!! i asked the pharmicyst (sp) and he never heard of it....but punched it into the computer, and it came up. he figures it to cost around 25 bouck. online it looked like it was 50-70$, but the net is overpriced....

i was hoping to already guinea pig the stuff for a couple months now, but am a procrastenater...

something to look into...

[Riki]

Coz the acne is caused by a bacteria which frequent over the whole body, ya need to take the antibiotics for at least 6 weeks, which causes also the death of the good bacteria and in some cases leads to other deseases, and in wrong use can lead to shock.

Grtz

Originally posted by JCalvin619
I've never heard of that, could you explain more.

[GearTripper]

Originally posted by Riki
Coz the acne is caused by a bacteria which frequent over the whole body, ya need to take the antibiotics for at least 6 weeks, which causes also the death of the good bacteria and in some cases leads to other deseases, and in wrong use can lead to shock.

Grtz

not to mention that over prolonged used of any antibiotic, your body could be come accustomed to it and then wheny ou really need someting for some major disease you got, the antibiotic won't work as it should... as far as i understand.

[elijah_123]

I'm having good luck with erythromycin (oral) and desquam-x as a topical. Seems to stop new zits (maybe 1 a week while on tren) and the desquam-x handles whatever does come up well. It is on the weaker side of most medicine but working well.

[rpwhit777]

Riki, tu est Francais? Moi je crois que tu un drape francaise un dessus ton nom? .........Bon!......Anyways I am with Riki on the antibiotics being bad for you, I actually am going through a bout with acne now and have access to minocycline and accutane but am hesitant to start.........

[invizible84]

hhajdo thanks for the info about Azithromycin was lookin for it for a while

[hckyplyr]

Bro,
I'm on Ranbaxy Sotret, its a generic form of accutane, but of course works exaclty like accutane. I'm not sure of the price, but because its generic, I'm damn sure its cheaper than the regular roche accutane. Take a look at the price, maybe you'll be surprised.

[invizible84]

thanks bro i have some free zithromax i'm gonna give it a try and see what happens

[Hotwtrbby]

I used topical stuff first, then tetracycline which worked but not as well as I had hoped, and then resorted to the accutane for 5 months. It did the job. I realize it's extremely expensive so maybe try the generic kind if there is one. Also, Cleocin T is a topical wipe that works really well as a before-bed kind of thing.

[nuttz565]

Ya I tried everything but nothing worked, I know its expensive but accutane is the best hands down

[djs]

I would also recommend against over use of antibiotics for many reasons.

I have tried many things and what has ended up working best for me is a home-brew of 50% Witch Hazel and 50% Alcohol. Mix the two into a spray bottle and apply it generously as soon as you get out of the shower, let it dry and re-apply.

This has worked wonders for clearing it up for me.

[TheQuietMan]

I never had a problem with acne until my doctor put me on the antibiotic doxycycline.This stuff really screwed me up.I have been off of it for months but my face still looks bad.

[wutangnomo]

You probably want to avoid using antibiotics. As recommended before, try using topicals first. Problem with antis is that they not only destroy the offending bacteria, but also many of the BENEFICIAL bacteria in your body. Combine this with the fact that you are on antis for quite a long time is not a good thing. Over time your body will adapt and develop a tolerance for the drug (which happens to MANY people, as it did with me when I was on minocine for acne for a year).

[TonySuicideKing]

^^^^ THE FUCK?

and strongest thing to use for acne... my nutt. just a few splashes on it and youll be clear in no time. just watch out for the eyes it'll burn a little

[thescienceofacne]

There isn't necessarily one thing that will cure all forms of acne, because not all acne is the same. That said there are several treatments you can look in to.

Oral Retinoids (Accutane, Isotretinoin, Sortret, etc) - Oral retinoids are one of the most powerful anti-acne drugs. They also have a lot of potential side effects. Because of this they are very controversial, and hard to obtain in the US.

Topical Retinoids (Retin-A, Tazorac, Differin, etc) - Are similar to oral retinoids. Not as strong, don't work as well, not as many side effects. Not very effective against inflammatory of cystic acne.

Oral Antibiotics - There are lots of oral antibiotics. Some work better than others. Tetracyclines (Doxycylcine, minocycline and tetracycline) are the most common. People also use Cephalexin (Keflex), Amoxicillin, Azithromycin, Bactrim, etc. Some of these drugs (like tetracyclines) are becoming less effective because more acne infections are caused by bacteria that are resistant to them (particularly in the US and Europe).

Topical Antibiotics - Generally less effectve (but fewer side effects) than oral antibiotics. The most common are erythromycin and clindamycin. Antibiotic resistance is common to these two types though....

There are also a ton of other prescription, non-prescription and naturopathic treatments available. Some work better than others. Some don't work at all. I wrote up a summary of these treatments and I posted it @ thescienceofacne.com Good luck.