Copied post COMMENTARY: IS THERE A SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR TREATING PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME WITH PROLONGED COURSES OF DOXYCYCLINE? CommDisBull 10(2)-May final2012.pdf (nicd.ac.za) might contain info of interest. [Edit:the link is to an article from the May 2012 edition of South Africa's National Health Laboratory Service's "Communicable Disease Surveillance Bulletin"] (another 'treatment' I tried early on (although it involved two types of anti-biotics), due to articles about rickettsia and also chlamydia pneumoniae being implicated in ME.)
Some antibiotics have been suggested as a possible cause of ME/CFS and similar illnesses either due to the action of the drug on the body Fluoroquinolones and ME (Stanford SoM) Ciprofloxacin impairs mitochondrial DNA replication initiation through inhibition of Topoisomerase 2, 2018, Goffart et al or the effect on microbiomes Single course of antibiotics may cause irreversible damage to crucial gut bacteria, UCL: in The Telegraph It has also been proposed that antibiotics might treat ME/CFS and similar illnesses, either through (often long) courses to eliminate hypothesised chronic bacterial infections, or through some other proposed effect of the antibiotic drug (e.g. reduction in inflammation): Long-term effect of cognitive behavioural therapy and doxycycline treatment for Q fever fatigue syndrome: Qure follow-up (2018) Raijmakers et al (summary - neither CBT or doxycycline worked any better than the placebo at followup in QFS) or, when combined with probiotics, part of a treatment to reset the gut microbiome:The Observer/Guardian article: Does the microbiome hold the key to chronic fatigue? About patient led 'research' group Remission Biome.
thread here on fluoroquinolones: https://www.s4me.info/threads/fluoroquinolones-including-ciprofloxacin.3602/
Further on the negative impact of antibiotics, this paper is specifically on reducing mitochondrial function: Mitochondria as target to inhibit proliferation and induce apoptosis of cancer cells: the effects of doxycycline and gemcitabine, 2020, Dijk et al
How do you balance the positives associated with treating possible bacterial infections with the negatives of mitochondrial problems?
I don't know, all I know is that the balance is more difficult than I realised when taking doxycycline for weeks on end to protect against malaria. I guess it's likely though that there is no free lunch. Ideally, we would be fairly certain that there is a bacterial infection likely to be effectively treated with antibiotics and unlikely to resolve well without treatment before we take them. But, I think that's not how medicine is typically done right now.
E-Mail to MECFS researchers, suggesting the connection between ME/CFS and fluoroquinolones in December 2015 and possible mechanism of action (annotated in Red) :
