I had a boil that grew to about an inch in diameter and would not come to a head.

     I was given a ten day course of doxycycline 100mg BID.  Boil didn’t go away so they sliced it open, drained it, and packed it with guaze which had to be repacked about four times before the wound healed enough not to need it.

     All seemed well except for scar tissue and my digestive system being thoroughly screwed up.

     Then last Sunday late afternoon the whole area became massively inflamed.  But Monday, it seemed back to normal mostly.

     The mostly was I could feel one end felt slightly thicker.  The next day it was back to being inflated only about a third the size it had gotten to and this time it came to a head.

     So I went back to the doctor and they popped it and expressed the contents and sent it off to a lab to determine what antibiotics it was most sensitive to since Doxycycline didn’t kill it, even though it did a fabulous job on my gut bacteria.

     In the meantime they put me on another Antibiotic, Clindamycin, which is reported to screw up gut bacteria even better than Doxycycline.  Oh Goodie!  They also had me start taking probiotics to try to restore my gut bacteria.

     I thought you all might enjoy the warning and side effects section:

     It’s good to know that it is “(rarely fatal)”.  It just makes you wish you were dead.

     Anyway, I’m into this boil for a grand so far and it’s not dead yet.