Lymecycline

What is Lymecycline?

Lymecycline is an antibiotic that can be used to treat inflamed, irritated skin and painful abscesses. It’s a capsule treatment you usually take once a day, but for infections it might be suggested you take two a day. Conditions like acne, folliculitis, and hidradenitis suppurativa can cause bacterial skin infections, and antibiotics work by destroying harmful bacteria and allowing your skin to heal.

Hidradenitis suppurativa is a long-term skin condition that’s often painful. It can cause symptoms like cysts, boils, and blackheads to form on your skin, which can sometimes become infected and leak pus.^[1] Folliculitis is an infection of your hair follicles. It can occur anywhere on your body where you have hair, and can make your skin red and extremely irritated.

Systemic antibiotics like Lymecycline might be prescribed if your skin is showing signs of infection, and isn’t responding well to topical treatments.

How does Lymecycline work?

Skin conditions like hidradenitis suppurativa and folliculitis can cause the skin to become infected by fungi and harmful bacteria, leading to infections.

When skin becomes infected, it usually requires stronger treatments than creams and moisturisers that treat the epidermis (your outer layer of skin). Antibiotics are one such treatment. For skin infections, antibiotics are used as part of topical formulas that can be applied to affected areas, or as oral capsules or tablets that treat your whole system. Lymecycline belongs to the latter form — it’s a capsule you swallow, usually daily, and the active ingredient (lymecycline) is absorbed into your bloodstream.

Lymecycline disrupts vital processes that bacteria need to survive. By destroying bacteria, the capsules allow your immune system to fight the infection and heal irritated and damaged skin. If your skin isn’t infected, antibiotics usually won’t be prescribed.

How effective is Lymecycline?

Lymecycline belongs to a class of medications known as tetracyclines, which are broad-spectrum antibiotics. This means they can be used to treat a wide range of bacterial infections.

While responses to the capsules will vary person-to-person, making it difficult to say exactly how effective Lymecycline will be for you, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest it can improve skin conditions. In one study that compared lymecycline with minocycline (another tetracycline), lymecycline was found to be an effective treatment for acne.^[2] It also gave people less side effects than minocycline.

Tetracyclines are widely used in dermatology. As well as having antibacterial properties, they’re also anti-inflammatory, which makes them an effective option for skin conditions involving redness and soreness.^[3]

How to take Lymecycline

For acne, the usual dose of Lymecycline is one capsule a day. For hidradenitis suppurativa and folliculitis, which can cause infections, a clinician might decide you need to take a higher dose (usually two capsules a day).

Swallow your capsules with a glass of water, with or without a meal.
It’s important to take the capsules exactly how they’ve been prescribed. Missing doses of antibiotics, or misusing them, can impact how effective they are. It can also lead to antibiotic resistance.^[1]

Are there different doses of Lymecycline?

Lymecycline is available as 408mg capsules. This is the only strength of the individual capsules, but you might need to up the amount you take each day depending on the severity of your skin and your symptoms.

Tetralysal, the branded version of lymecycline, contains the same amount of the active ingredient in the capsules, and works in the same way.

What happens if I make a mistake while using Lymecycline?

If you or anyone else takes more Lymecycline capsules than you need, go to your nearest casualty department for immediate help.

If you forget to take a capsule at your usual time, you can take it as soon as you remember provided it’s not too close to your next dose. There’s never a need to double dose — doing so won’t make Lymecycline work more effectively.