Doxycycline: Don't Bug Out Without It

Disclaimer. I am not a licensed health practitioner. This is just another post on knowledge and understanding you might wish to acquire in advance of a disaster in case no higher care is available. As long as our society is functioning, you should leave anything more substantial than applying a Band-Aid to the professionals. No medication, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician. Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.

I'm not a doctor. I've never played one on TV. I don't know if I have ever stayed in a Holiday Inn. So take the information here today (and everywhere on this blog) with those grains of salt.

I understand that for many doctors doxycycline doesn't make their list of most favored antibiotics. But I promise you on a stack of Bibles, I would never be without it when things really fall apart. There are just some conditions that doxycycline alone can treat, some for which there are no known alternatives in conventional or herbal medicine. More on that below.

Doxycycline is a broad-spectrum member of the tetracycline family. It also goes by the trade names of Vibramycin or Vibratabs, and is sold as Fish-Doxy and Bird-Biotic. Doxycycline is not for use in children under the age of eight years except in cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, typhus, and anthrax. Doxycycline can cause extreme sun sensitivity. Avoid sun exposure between the hours of 10AM and 3PM and wear hats, sunglasses, long sleeves, and pants when outdoors. Finally, doxycycline inhibits the efficacy of oral birth control and other methods must be used when taking this antibiotic.

Common substances that inhibit doxycycline include:

• calcium, as found in milk, calcium supplements, Tums;
• magnesium, iron, and zinc, as found in vitamins and supplements; 
• warfarin

Doxycycline is a common inexpensive antibiotic. If your personal physician is reluctant to help you build a stockpile, you have a few options to acquire doxycycline on your own.

• Ranch and feed stores often carry "fish" antibiotics.
• Online at fishmoxfishflex.com or kraftdrug.com. (I have no experience with either of these companies.)
• Overseas and across the border pharmacies. We've used All Day Chemist for several years.

Dr. Cynthia Koelker recommends storing at least one hundred 100 mg tablets for a family of four for one year. Government studies demonstrated that most medicines are effective for several years past the date stamped on the bottle. Their tests of doxycycline showed it was effective an average of 50 months past the stamped date.

The following are typical dosages and treatment courses for some TEOTWAWKI-type illnesses. These are not prescriptions. They are only a means of helping you calculate how much doxycycline may wish to have on hand for your family, and so that a physician can treat your loved ones as best as possible. All are adult dosages. Children should not be given doxycycline, except in extreme situations.

• Tularemia. 100 mg, every 12 hours, for 10-14 days. Unfortunately, there's a good chance for relapse.
• Pneumonic plague. 
• Prophylactic treatment post-exposure (for those who have been exposed to pneumonic plague, but are not sick): 100 mg/2x per day for the first day, then 100 mg per day for 7 days; 
• For sick individuals: 100 mg/2x per day for the first day, then 100 mg per day for 10 days. 
• Tick bites. If you have the resources, every patient presenting with a tick bite in a high-risk area may be given a 200 mg single dose. 
• If I had an immediate family member with a tick that had possibly been attached for more than twelve hours, and assuming I still had an adequate supply, I wouldn't hesitate to use doxycycline in this manner. 
• Others can use their own supplies or hope for the best. I wouldn't use my supplies prophylactically on someone outside my family. 
• For bacterial tick-borne diseases, physicians typically prescribe 100 mg/2x per day/10-14 days. 
• Typhus. The dosage recommended for adults is 100 mg/2x per day/usually 7-10 days (until at least three days after the fever subsides). For children under 100 pounds, the dosage is 2.2 mg/kg twice per day. Without doxycycline, most patients will die. For what it's worth, in wartime outbreaks, many of the typhus fatalities were actually among those nursing the ill and wounded. 
• Dog and cat bites. 50-100 mg, 2 times per day, for 3-5 days (but not for children under the age of nine, or pregnant or nursing women). 
• Cholera. A single 300 mg dose.

Doxycycline is a second line antibiotic for treating pneumonia and infected burns.

Doxycycline is also indicated for some foodborne infections--Escherichia coli, Shigella, and Enterobacter infections; sexually-transmitted diseases--chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and pelvic inflammatory disease; some urinary tract infections, chronic prostatitis, and epididymitis; upper respiratory infections caused by strep, MRSA infections, and some parasitic worm infections (per Dr. Joseph Alton, it kills bacteria in the worms that the worms need to survive.

Contraindications: Not for use in pregnancy. It is not for use in children except in the case of typhus, post-exposure anthrax, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, or when there are no other alternatives available in a life-threatening situation.

Links to related posts:
Acquiring Antibiotics
Cholera
Typhus
Tularemia
Tick-Borne Bacterial Illnesses  
Dog and Cat Bites
Pneumonic Plague

For further reading:
Dr. Joseph Alton, Alton's Antibiotics, pp 495-496.
Dr. Cynthia Koelker, Armageddon Medicine.
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 4 february 2020