Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

news.northwestern.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 166 posts

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#31

Post by registeredcorn »

jadbox wrote: post #3

This is desperately needed. I have Midwest family who have suffered ten years due to persistent lyme disease from having a single tick bite.

Same. Family member who lived out around Utah and Colorado. She had been racked with pain for something like 15-20 years. She was going to doctors constantly, trying to figure out what was wrong. She was labeled as a "drug seeker" and got shoved around for years as a result.

Later on, she came across a doctor who happened to used to live in the North East and recognized it as Lyme disease pretty much instantly. She still deals with pain on a constant on-going basis, but has been slightly lessened with more targeted medications, etc. Hopefully something like this can offer her and others like her some sustainable, long-term relief.

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#32

Post by voidmain0001 »

monster_truck wrote: post #15
dev_l1x_be wrote: post #7

It is kinda funny that humanity can kills entire species like the dodo while cannot eradicate a bacterium like Borrelia.

If I could hunt Borrelia with spears it would be over

I would like to kill more deer which are part of the Lyme cycle. There are so many in the rural area I live, they remind of big city rats.

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#33

Post by voidmain0001 »

gavin-1 wrote: post #27
binary132 wrote: post #22

And 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…

Agreed. Long Lyme certainly exists. I appear to have it as do numerous acquaintances. I wrote "appear to have it" because a blood test for Borrelia returns negative. However, just two weeks ago a doctor told me that Borrelia can evade a blood test by infecting the nervous system. That was news to me so I found this from NIH in the USA. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8870494/ Borrelia can cross over to the CNS. Lovely.

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#34

Post by almosthere »

ixtli wrote: post #18
bentt wrote: post #13

This 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.

Now everyone agrees, experts are just normal people that have built a bias towards one ideological thing or another.

Long COVID? (looks up "party" stance)... that doesn't exist. Eat Apples.

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#35

Post by voidmain0001 »

netaustin wrote: post #21

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-…

I'm on a second round of Doxy. The first was 21 days and now I have a 60 day prescription. It doesn't knock me out. I take the first dose early in the morning with a lot of water. I don't eat until noon, but not before first taking a capsule of probiotics to replenish gut bacteria. I take the second Doxy in the evening with a meal. Then 3 hours later I take another probiotic capsule to restore gut bacteria overnight. Maybe that regime is helping or maybe I'm just fortunate.

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#36

Post by charlangas »

Both of my sisters (currently mid-30s) have had their lives on pause for over 10 years due to chronic Lyme disease because doctors in Mexico hadn't ever even heard of it. It took 4 years of pain for the first of them to be diagnosed. Not sure when, if ever, they'll be cured because when you don't treat Lyme disease within a few months of infection, it digs in and is incredibly difficult to kill.

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#37

Post by bentt »

agos wrote: post #29
ixtli wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!)

Yes! It's vital that we continue to look for opportunities in the midst of such a crisis.

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#38

Post by Aurornis »

charlangas wrote: post #36

Both of my sisters (currently mid-30s) have had their lives on pause for over 10 years due to chronic Lyme disease because doctors in Mexico hadn't ever even heard of it. It took 4 years of pain for the first of them to be diagnosed. Not sure when, if ever, they'll be cured because when you don't treat Lyme disease within a few months of infection, it digs in and is incredibly difficult to kill.

> Not sure when, if ever, they'll be cured because when you don't treat Lyme disease within a few months of infection, it digs in and is incredibly difficult to kill

FYI, the idea that active infection continues to exist in hiding within the body is a fringe theory.

The linked article talks about one of the current theories for why some patients have persistent symptoms after the infection is treated. The theory involves certain components of the past infection lodging themselves in the liver where they persist and can cause symptoms.

This is a difficult topic because some alternative Lyme treatment providers will tell patients they have a persistent infection and then subject them to years of high-dose antibiotics with no scientific basis, which can create a separate set of problems without addressing anything.

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#39

Post by micromacrofoot »

giantg2 wrote: post #5

I thought that there are approved human vaccines, but they were voluntarily removed due to economic reasons and lack of adoption.

There are multiple human vaccines in the works at the moment, earliest might be available towards the end of 2027 as long as they're not defunded by the current administration

Re: New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms

#40

Post by dec0dedab0de »

netaustin wrote: post #21

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-…

Just to be pedantic, Bell's Palsy is the name of the condition not the cause. So it was Bell's Palsy caused by Lyme disease.

I have noticed that the line between condition and cause is often overlooked, even by doctors. For example this leads to people thinking Pinkeye/conjunctivitis is highly contagious, when it is still conjunctivitis if it is caused by getting something in your eye. I think that holds for everything that ends in -itis too Sinusitis, Arthritis, Tendonitis, etc.

I know that is a bit of a tangent, but you reminded me of someone who had bell's palsy telling me that it was actually shingles. I explained that just because it was caused by shingles doesn't mean it stops being Bell's Palsy, just like how it is still a cough if it's from the flu or from smoking. They ended up getting really angry at me about it, but I think hn might appreciate the semantics a bit more.

Post reply on HN