The patient: A 68-year-old woman in the U.S.
The symptoms: Over the course of six weeks, dark patches appeared on the woman's arms and legs. The splotches ranged from a bruise-like dark blue and purple to jet-black.
What happened next: While examining the patient, doctors noticed blue-gray "hyperpigmentation" on the woman's forearms and shins, as well as on the sides of her tongue. The woman noted that the patches had first appeared on her legs before cropping up elsewhere.
She also told doctors that, two weeks before the patches appeared, she'd started a course of minocycline, an oral antibiotic.
She had been prescribed a daily 100-milligram dose of the drug to treat symptoms of rosacea, which causes chronic inflammation and redness of the face. This inflammation can drive the formation of small, red bumps and pus-filled pimples on the skin, and evidence suggests that antibiotics like minocycline can help eliminate those bumps. In addition to killing bacteria, the drug is known to have anti-inflammatory effects, the latter of which may best explain how it treats rosacea.
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