maximus otter
Recovering policeman
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2001
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A TikTok user has alerted many people to the fact that your bones, under certain rare circumstances, can turn black. TikTokker archiebeshort told the story to his followers of how he discovered he had "black bone disease" on a trip to the dentist.
During high school, Archie was given minocycline (a type of tetracycline antibiotic) to treat his acne. Thinking nothing of it (let's face it, when you take medication you don't really speculate about your bone color) for years, he didn't appear to have any side effects. However, when Archie's wisdom teeth came through, he immediately noticed the problem.
"My wisdom tooth came in and it was black and I was like 'oh my god my teeth are rotting'," he said in the TikTok video. "And it turns out that my jaw's black, and probably the rest of my skull and most of my bones [are too] according to my doctor." As the rest of Archie's teeth came in before he had begun using the acne medication, his other teeth remain white.
Once begun, the process of discolouration is rapid and permanent, but black bone disease (when caused by minocycline) is fairly benign and not associated with necrosis, or death of tissue. Though it's not fully understood, there are possible mechanisms for the discoloration.
"Black pigmentation of bone by minocycline is thought to occur through ferric iron being bound to the oxidized drug in developing bone," a team looking at five cases of the rare disease wrote in Clinics in Orthopedic Surgery. "And via the accumulation of insoluble quinine from degradation of the aromatic ring of the drug in mature bone."
https://www.iflscience.com/tiktokker-discovers-at-the-dentist-that-his-bones-have-turned-black-66200
maximus otter
During high school, Archie was given minocycline (a type of tetracycline antibiotic) to treat his acne. Thinking nothing of it (let's face it, when you take medication you don't really speculate about your bone color) for years, he didn't appear to have any side effects. However, when Archie's wisdom teeth came through, he immediately noticed the problem.
"My wisdom tooth came in and it was black and I was like 'oh my god my teeth are rotting'," he said in the TikTok video. "And it turns out that my jaw's black, and probably the rest of my skull and most of my bones [are too] according to my doctor." As the rest of Archie's teeth came in before he had begun using the acne medication, his other teeth remain white.
Once begun, the process of discolouration is rapid and permanent, but black bone disease (when caused by minocycline) is fairly benign and not associated with necrosis, or death of tissue. Though it's not fully understood, there are possible mechanisms for the discoloration.
"Black pigmentation of bone by minocycline is thought to occur through ferric iron being bound to the oxidized drug in developing bone," a team looking at five cases of the rare disease wrote in Clinics in Orthopedic Surgery. "And via the accumulation of insoluble quinine from degradation of the aromatic ring of the drug in mature bone."
https://www.iflscience.com/tiktokker-discovers-at-the-dentist-that-his-bones-have-turned-black-66200
maximus otter