The CDC says post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome or 'chronic lyme' doesn't exist. While i am suspicious of this claim, I know people who say they have it, and have subjected themselves to every treatment under the sun without any success.
Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
111–120 of 238 posts
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oil. Edit: I had a scary experience. After rain I was hunting in the woods with bushes a metre tall, shotgut over the head to avoid accidents. Then a snake hiss ahead, tried to turn right, another snake hiss that way, same to left and... same back. I panicked and got out of the bushes as fast as I could, I was panting. Then I noticed I was covered by hundreds of ticks. I shouted and my father came alarmed. He managed…
So you just rub olive oil on it?
My understanding is removal by gripping the mouth parts is the only safe way to remove a tick.
Coating them in oil blocks their oxygen exchange, so they release, but sometimes they vomit back into the bit when they do.
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#113I was bit by a tick and I got sick. No doctor could figure out what was wrong. I tested negative for Lyme. I took antibiotics (Biaxin) and 3 months later I was fine. I stopped taking antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. I took Biaxin for 6 months. I felt great. I stopped antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. I took Biaxin for a year. I felt great. I stopped taking antibiotics. Within 2 months I was…
This is amazing. Have you followed up with any of the doctors since? What did they say in response to your recovery?
When I was healthy for 6 months, and I felt confident that I was going to remain healthy, I went back to my main doctor of those 20 years. They simply said, “Yes, fasting seems to work really well for some people.” I was irritated that they had apparently known about this but hadn’t suggested it to me.
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then you really need to consider that it's probably not as simple as "she has x disease and needs the right antibiotic." My best understanding: parasitic infections tend to thrive due to feeding on detritus from other infections and persistent infection in spite of multiple treatments probably means she's being reinfected on a regular basis. My chronic infections did not begin to improve until I informed my then spou…
So was your spouse reinfecting you?
I believe so.
Of course, I can't prove it and I find the question flabbergasting given that I already stated that insisting on condoms was fairly promptly followed by my condition stabilizing and improving.
For the record: I eventually divorced him. I've been celibate for medical reasons for over 14 years, in part because men I dated could not follow the simple instruction to bring a damn condom for health reasons and I was too sick and vulnerable to get up and walk out like I should have. After the third well-educated idiot pulled this on me, I vowed to myself I would be celibate until I was well, basically.
I've gotten off all drugs. I'm gradually putting in more hours on freelance work. I'm mostly healthy when doctors said that was not ever going to happen.
But that's enough about my (utter lack of a) sex life.
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could find the name of that medication. My sister has Lyme Disease and is still suffering health effects from it despite various treatments.
Most non-Lyme Literate Medical doctors prescribe Doxycyclin. If you are seeing a Lyme Literate Medical doctor they'll put you on a cocktail (often Clarithromycin, Doxy, Alinia (anti-parasitic), and a few others. This also depends if you have co-infections or not.
The UK NICE guidelines suggest doxycycline, and have a section discussing the evidence for that:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng95
"Lyme literate" seems to be a pseudoscience term related to the ME-like crypto-syndrome "chronic Lyme disease" - for example, see towards the end here:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/legislative-alchemy-2014-so...
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#116Surprised to see Lyme disease on HN, since bringing affordable DNA testing for B. burgdorferi & other pathogens to the public is the startup I've been working on since 2014. Relevant Plug: https://www.tickcheck.com/ As mentioned in other comments, serological tests fall short in various ways (accuracy, time). If you keep the tick that bit you, we can test it for the presence Lyme, and several other pathogens. If nega…
Interesting. I got bit by 2 blacklegged ticks in the past 3 months but I couldn't find any free tick tests, so I never had them tested. Both were within a few hours so I assumed based on CDC advice that I was still in the green zone. It sounds like one of those things that health insurance companies would be out of their minds to not cover. Separately: Bay Area hikers beware -- change your clothes immediately after g…
> Both were within a few hours so I assumed based on CDC advice that I was still in the green zone.
I wouldn't trust the CDC data. Notice that there is no primary source on their webpage.
Here is a paper by someone who took an independent look into it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4278789/
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no such thing as "chronic Lyme disease": https://www.fasebj.org/doi/10.1096/fj.10-167247 https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-everybody-have-chronic...
I didn't read the links, but I've read a lot here https://lymescience.org/ and I also almost fell for "chronic Lyme" few years ago. There's something seriously unsettling around websites/online communities dedicated to chronic Lyme. From Lyme friendly doctors, to people doing and interpreting their own tests, to people ascribing all kind of ailments to this "condition", etc.
If you want to go down another rabbit hole, read about Morgellons
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#118I was bit by a tick and I got sick. No doctor could figure out what was wrong. I tested negative for Lyme. I took antibiotics (Biaxin) and 3 months later I was fine. I stopped taking antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. I took Biaxin for 6 months. I felt great. I stopped antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. I took Biaxin for a year. I felt great. I stopped taking antibiotics. Within 2 months I was…
Now I'm no medical expert but antibiotics resolve an infection after a certain amount of time. Even for Lyme and leprosy. There may be health after-effects but those would not be resolved by antibiotics since the infection is gone. What could possibly outlast 20 years of continuous antibiotics that isn't either completely killed or mutates and renders the antibiotics ineffective? And then be resolved with a fast?
Teenagers with acne often take antibiotics for many years. I had one friend with severe acne who took antibiotics well into adulthood.
Those teenagers, who take antibiotics, with a microscope at home can do this simple experiment: prick your finger with a needle and put a drop of blood on steriled glass, then put that under a microscope. Do you see bacteria? Yes, of course you do. Even if you take antibiotics for 20 years, your body will still be seething with bacteria. There is no way to get rid of the bacteria on your body. That isn’t what antibiotics do. Antibiotics work with your immune system to bring bacterial load back to a reasonable level. If antibiotics killed all bacteria then people with compromised immune systems could be kept safe from bacteria with antibiotics. But there isn’t a doctor in the world who thinks that’s possible.
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#119I was bitten by little nymph/larval (not sure which) ticks on Bay Trail in Mountain View, CA. Had to stop riding my bicycle there (which I absolutely loved) because I just can't afford to be debilitated by Lyme's disease. I've become violently genocidal towards these little bloodsuckers. If it was up to me, I'd wipe them out with almost any means, and at whatever cost ;-) After looking into the anti-tick options I ac…
You could wear a wet suit, taped with some gaffer tape, thick balaclava, etc. It might not stop leaches but will reduce the chance of ticks and most other bites.
But you would also sweat a lot and generally be quite uncomfortable. Tradeoffs...
Though I am nearly there when I go for walks in mosquito country. Big hat, with netting all around, socks half way up my legs, trousers stuck well inside them...
I do really hate ticks. Ruins summers for me.
Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. I got bit by 2 blacklegged ticks in the past 3 months but I couldn't find any free tick tests, so I never had them tested. Both were within a few hours so I assumed based on CDC advice that I was still in the green zone. It sounds like one of those things that health insurance companies would be out of their minds to not cover. Separately: Bay Area hikers beware -- change your clothes immediately after g…
We can't get reimbursed by health insurance because we aren't a medical facility, but rather a DNA lab. I'm sure in some regard, it's a downside. However, it does force us to compete intensely on price, value & service. And I'm happy with that because consumers win.
When the cost of prevention is higher than the cost of treatment, you know the system is truly messed up.
IMO health insurance should be paying for everything preventative. It's in their financial interest to stop fretting about what kind of lab you are, encourage early diagnosis and reduce long-term medical costs.