• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Contact | 360-778-1266

Center for Hearing Loss Help

Help for your hearing loss, tinnitus and other ear conditions

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Reference
    • Glossary of Ear Terms
    • Drug Pronunciation Guide
    • Looping Information
    • “Learn About Hearing”
    • Useful Links
  • Museum
  • Blog
  • Shop
    • Alerting Devices
    • Assistive Listening Devices
    • Books
    • Loop Systems
    • Speechreading CDs
    • Telephones, amplified
    • Visor Cards

Doxycycline and Hearing Loss

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man wrote:

My doctor is considering giving me low-dose Doxycycline to treat my ocular rosacea. Can you tell me how safe this drug might be for someone with a moderate sensorineural hearing loss?

I was given tetracycline as a child (which badly discolored my permanent teeth) and took it again for a number of years for acne as a teenager. After learning about ototoxic drugs, I’ve wondered if the Tetracycline might have contributed to my hearing loss. Although the Tetracycline drugs are promoted as relatively safe, I do have concerns about using Doxycycline. Is there any information about this drug, in regard to ototoxicity?

Information on the ototoxicity of many drugs is quite sketchy. Drugs in the Tetracycline family are no exception. Here is what I can tell you about them.

The Tetracycline family of antibiotics includes drugs such as Tetracycline, Chlortetracycline, Doxycycline and Minocycline to name some of the more common ones.

Often drugs in the same family have much the same ototoxic properties. Thus, if Tetracycline did indeed damage your ears, you could expect more damage from Doxycycline.

In order to determine whether there might be a connection between your taking Tetracycline and your hearing loss, you need to think back and see whether there is any correlation in time between when you took the Tetracycline and the appearance of your hearing loss. If your hearing loss occurred shortly after you first took the Tetracycline, and got worse after the second bout, then there would seem to be a strong cause and effect relationship. However, if you did not get a hearing loss until many years later, I would doubt that the Tetracycline caused it.

Although Tetracycline and Doxycycline are not listed in the Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR) as causing hearing loss, Minocycline is. However, we get a different story when looking through the Canadian equivalent–the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (CPS). There we find Tetracycline, but not Doxycycline or Minocycline listed as causing hearing loss.

From that, it would appear that hearing loss is not a big problem with the drugs in the Tetracycline family. As you have already noted, the Tetracycline family is generally not thought to be all that ototoxic–at least to most people. However, there are a number of exceptions. Some people do indeed suffer from hearing loss after taking one of the Tetracyclines. I have had several people contact me in this regard.

For example, one man had a severe ototoxic reaction to Tetracycline that left him with a severe/profound hearing loss in both ears. Another man took Chlortetracycline for a strep throat that left him with a permanent hearing loss. Yet another man took Doxycycline for a urinary tract infection and lost much of his hearing as a result. Still another man took Doxycycline for 10 days to treat his cold. He reported, “the hearing in my already-impaired right ear suddenly reduced to virtually zero and remains there.”

Thus, it is wise for you to be wary, especially since you already have a hearing loss. This is because people with hearing losses are even more susceptible to the ravages of ototoxic drugs than those with normal hearing.

Will the Doxycycline affect your hearing? I don’t think anyone knows for sure. Thus, you are going to have to decide for yourself, based on your earlier history with Tetracycline, whether you want to risk taking the Doxycycline and having to put up with any resulting ototoxic side effects or not. At least you now know what you are dealing with.

If you choose not to risk it, you might want to investigate other drugs that are not known to be ototoxic, or look at other options such as herbal remedies.

For more information on ototoxic drugs in general seach this website for the many articles on various ototoxic drugs.

For complete information and individual listings on the known ototoxic drugs and chemicals, see our book, “Ototoxic Drugs Exposed.”

Primary Sidebar

Hearing Loss Research & Resources

Free Visor Cards

Download your free Visor Cards for hard of hearing or deaf people here.

Loop Systems

Loop your home or meeting room. Discover how you can hear wonderfully clear sound again when listening to the TV/radio, etc, or when listening to a speaker at a meeting.

Loop systems are one of the best-kept secrets in town. To learn more about Loop Systems and what they can do for you, click here.

Take Control of Your Tinnitus—Here’s How

If your ears ring, buzz, chirp, hiss, click or roar, you know just how annoying tinnitus can be. You do not have to put up with this racket for the rest of your life. This book teaches you many things you can do to help bring your tinnitus under your control so it no longer bothers you.

Learn More | Add to Cart—Printed | Add to Cart—eBook

Sounds Now Too Loud for You?

Hypersensitive to Sound front coverIf some (or all) normal sounds seem so loud they “blow the top of your head off”, or make you wince or jump, or cause you headaches or ear pain, or affect your balance, or result in fear or annoyance of sounds so you feel you have to avoid these sounds, this book is for you!

Learn More | Add to Cart—Printed | Add to Cart—eBook

Hearing Phantom Sounds?

When hard of hearing people begin hearing phantom voices or music, they immediately worry they are going crazy. It never crosses their minds that they are sane and are just experiencing Musical Ear syndrome.

To learn more about the strange phantom sounds of Musical Ear syndrome and what you can do about them, click here to read a comprehensive article about Musical Ear Syndrome.

Or get the book—Learn More | Add to Cart—Printed | Add to Cart—eBook

Glossary Navigation

  • Full List of Glossary Terms
  • A to Z Index

Footer

Center for Hearing Loss Help

Neil G. Bauman, Ph.D.

1013 Ridgeway Drive, Lynden,
WA 98264-1057 USA

Email: neil@hearinglosshelp.com

Phone: 360-778-1266 (M-F 9:00 AM-5:00 PM PST)

© 2025 Center for Hearing Loss Help – Help for your hearing loss, tinnitus and other ear conditions

"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life [which also includes perfect hearing] through Jesus Christ our Lord." [Romans 6:23]

"But know this, in the last days perilous times will come" [2 Timothy 3:1]. "For there will be famines, pestilences, and [severe] earthquakes in various places" [Matthew 24:7], "distress of nations, the sea and the waves roaring"—tsunamis, hurricanes—Luke 21:25, but this is good news if you have put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, for "when these things begin to happen, lift up your heads [and rejoice] because your redemption draws near" [Luke 21:28].