I contracted Lyme disease while on vacation in Cape Cod last year. The first symptom was left-side facial paralysis, which my physician diagnosed as Bell's Palsy, so I spent two weeks on steroids before we figured out the real issue. Three weeks of doxycycline cured the Lyme but left feeling pretty wrecked for more than a month afterwards! I seem to have avoided the chronic symptoms some people experience, but a low-dose antibiotic would have been great.
New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
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Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#22And here I thought “long Lyme” had been proven fake.
Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#23I contracted Lyme disease while on vacation in Cape Cod last year. The first symptom was left-side facial paralysis, which my physician diagnosed as Bell's Palsy, so I spent two weeks on steroids before we figured out the real issue. Three weeks of doxycycline cured the Lyme but left feeling pretty wrecked for more than a month afterwards! I seem to have avoided the chronic symptoms some people experience, but a low-…
Disclaimer: Not a doctor.
I think you’re alluding to this in your last statement, but standard treatment for Lyme can absolutely wreck your natural gut microbiome. This could explain some of the lingering chronic effects post-treatment. Did you try supplementing with fermented foods or probiotics after completing dox?
Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#24It is kinda funny that humanity can kills entire species like the dodo while cannot eradicate a bacterium like Borrelia.
There were far fewer dodos than any given bacteria. You can also see a dodo.
Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#25I thought that there are approved human vaccines, but they were voluntarily removed due to economic reasons and lack of adoption.
It's a complicated story. There were (almost certainly overstated by some) side effects and it just wasn't a super-effective vaccine. Still IMO shouldn't have been take off the market. Hopefully one of the vaccines under development pan out because Lyme is a real problem in some areas and increasingly spreading north.
Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#26> Northwestern scientists identified that piperacillin, an antibiotic in the same class as penicillin, effectively cured mice of Lyme disease at 100-times less than the effective dose of doxycycline.
Would be nice if it translates to humans.
> The authors argue that piperacillin, which has already been FDA-approved as a safe treatment for pneumonia, could also be a candidate for preemptive interventions for those potentially exposed to Lyme (with a known deer tick bite).
Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#27And here I thought “long Lyme” had been proven fake.
"long Lyme" isn't well defined, but you're probably thinking of chronic lyme [1]. This article refers to PTLD.
The distinction matters. Chronic lyme is quackery that encourages people to pursue aggressive long-term antibiotic treatment for a non-existent persistent bacterial infection. Often these are people who have never been infected with Borrelia in the first place.
The article directly contradicts the persistent (undetectable) bacterial infection "chronic lyme" theory.
Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#28This is amazing and really needed in the northern US and Canada. It is also great they speak to the chronic lyme condition because many people get accused of it being psychosomatic or even false (similar with long Covid). Their theory of it being bacterial remnants in the liver is validating.
Its sad that we needed to have a partially avoidable mass death due to COVID in order for people to start considering these chronic conditions more broadly in society. People have been having these issues for generations.
I mean, sure.
But some things are just really complex and the root causes are very, very difficult to pin down. There was a lot sad about COVID, but like 4000th on the list is how it revealed the human dynamics that lead to chronic diseases being overlooked because science has no valid explanation for what's happening to patients. I say this as someone who suffered from Lyme Disease for a number of years.
Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#29This is amazing and really needed in the northern US and Canada. It is also great they speak to the chronic lyme condition because many people get accused of it being psychosomatic or even false (similar with long Covid). Their theory of it being bacterial remnants in the liver is validating.
Its sad that we needed to have a partially avoidable mass death due to COVID in order for people to start considering these chronic conditions more broadly in society. People have been having these issues for generations.
look at it the other way: we got a couple of unexpected silver linings from the COVID hell. one is attention to these chronic conditions (finally!)
Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms
#30This is fantastic news. I live in Wisconsin - a tick and Lyme Disease hot spot. Ticks are one of the few bugs that really freak me out due to Lyme Disease, especially for my kids who spend a lot of time out playing in the grass.
Any news on the development of the fight against Lyme Disease is great news.
One key thing I've learned is that ticks are very unlikely to spread disease-causing bacteria within the first few hours of biting. So just do regular checks whenever you've been outside in tick-prone areas and get them off right away if found. If removed promptly the chance of infection is basically zero.