New studies offer insight into Lyme disease’s treatment, lingering symptoms • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by pembrook » Wed, May 07, 2025, 5:57 AM UTC

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.

Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s extremely unlikely both your sisters would have a rare chronic condition related to Lyme that wouldn’t respond to the standard course of antibiotics. The hysteria around Lyme on the internet is ridiculous.

Unfortunately nobody wants to say it to your face, but among females, you can never rule out social contagion when confronted with extremely coincidental outcomes like this.

Or, it could be a genetic condition they both have being misdiagnosed as chronic Lyme via internet research.

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

#112

Post by pcthrowaway » Wed, May 07, 2025, 6:40 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #107

newyankee wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes you question, how bad could an all encompassing AI be at diagnosing given enough multimodal data

One can debate its merit right now, the upside / downside equation. In 10-20 years? Game over. Doctors will largely be the physical space touch point. AI will in effect use meatbags to interact with the patients.

I think I'm feeling the effects of Gell-Mann amnesia here. The same is said about software engineers, but I'm not as confident as you that there won't be a need for the profession in 10-20 years.

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

#113

Post by throw310822 » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:01 AM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #51

3D30497420 wrote: post #50

On a related note, the Trump administration frozen more than $790 million in federal funding for NU because of "ongoing federal antisemitism investigations": https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/05/05/lateststories/by-th...

This is what the "fight" with "elite" universities is really about: No longer funding research. That's the most important aspect of this thing. Every other aspect of this is a sideshow to the main event. And the main event very much is the de-funding of scientific research. No longer funding this research is a huge change. And one that will eventually have far-reaching consequences for everyone.

> This is what the "fight" with "elite" universities is really about: No longer funding research.

No, sorry, the fight with the universities is quite clearly to crush criticism of Israel and all forms of identity politics. The stops in funding for research are a means to achieve this plainly declared objective.

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

#114

Post by throw310822 » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:06 AM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #61

How strange that scientific research just like this has become extremely political. Case in point: The Trump administration has cut Northwestern off from over a quarter billion dollars in funding because of "anti-semitism." Note, that the vast majority of this money is for research just like the one linked in this article. Of course, people seem to be arguing about anti-semitism more than cutting off funding for rese…

The government is cutting funding to universities to crush opposition to Israel, which they call derogatorily "antisemitism". It is plainly stated. The objective is shielding from criticism a foreign country. Damn deal with it instead of second and third guessing the motives of the government.

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

#115

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:32 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #111

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.

Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s extremely unlikely both your sisters would have a rare chronic condition related to Lyme that wouldn’t respond to the standard course of antibiotics. The hysteria around Lyme on the internet is ridiculous. Unfortunately nobody wants to say it to your face, but among females, you can never rule out social contagion when confronted with extremely coincidental outcomes like this. Or, it co…

[deleted]

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

#116

Post by cco » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:57 AM UTC

brady8 wrote: post #81

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 everythi…

Much of being a physician is pattern recognition - the vast majority of Bell's Palsy is idiopathic (generally viral), and thus that's how we usually treat it. If we tested everybody for everything everytime the health system(s) would collapse. It definitely helps as a patient to advocate, and add anything that a physician like myself maybe wouldn't always ask, like if you've been a tick-infested area and/or discovere…

> If we tested everybody for everything everytime the health system(s) would collapse.

Looks like Labcorp made over 3 billion dollars last year, so I think probably that number would go up instead of collapsing?

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

#117

Post by BiteCode_dev » Wed, May 07, 2025, 8:03 AM UTC

dev1ycan wrote: post #109

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors are trained to be arrogant, dismissive of unknown unknowns, and with a terrible understanding of statistics. Add to that: - They have a lot of patients and not enough sleep. - They need to pay back a huge student loan. - They hold terrible responsibilities and risk being sued. - They don't have much time for themselves, let alone update their knowledge. - Most patients are overreacting idiots, so it's a winni…

"Doctors are trained to be arrogant" Says the programmer who is giving an opinion on a field that is not his...

I'm not trained to be arrogant, I'm born that way.

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

#118

Post by pjc50 » Wed, May 07, 2025, 8:26 AM UTC

The5thElephant wrote: post #62

roody15 wrote: post #52

My mother got a tick bite and felt off and the doctor told her she had allergies and sinus infection due to high pollen. Luckily my younger brother is a physician and told her to go back and ask for a Lyme disease test. They said okay but said Lyme disease is really rare and wasn’t necessary. Long story short she was positive but was caught early enough that 30 days Doxy was all she needed. That same year I was bitte…

Why have I heard so many stories of doctors not wanting to diagnose something as Lyme disease?

Certain things are way under-diagnosed, especially anything relating to a chronic condition that does not have an easy biomarker. Doctors get cynical about their patients.

A particularly nasty one is endometriosis.

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

#119

Post by tasuki » Wed, May 07, 2025, 8:34 AM UTC

hattmall wrote: post #59

tasuki wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> was checking for the bull’s-eye rash to appear Note that the absence of that wouldn't mean you didn't get lyme disease. Where I live, most of the ticks carry lyme disease, yet not that many people get infected: if you pull it out quickly, you greatly reduce the chance of getting infected. Of the people I know, perhaps 20% had lyme disease (and knew about it, I must add).

1 in 5 people had Lyme disease where you live? Where is that??

Central Europe. Maybe 1 in 10. I know at least 10 people who did, anyway. And I have not talked about this with all the people I know.

Some have no lingering issues, others have lingering issues seemingly for life, and yet others have issues for a couple of years and then they're ok.

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

#120

Post by stinos » Wed, May 07, 2025, 8:58 AM UTC

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).

This strikes me as somehwat odd: as far as I'm aware there are worldwide issues with overuse of anitbiotics leading to various bacteria becoming resistent (and a quick serach seems to indicate this is also the case for piperacillin), but here they're saying that it would be ok for a probabaly large amount of people (as in: millions annualy?) to get antibiotics preemptively? Or is the reasoning that the does is low enough that it's fine?

I mean, it's not uncommon for me and people I know to get a bite multiple times a year. It's better when taking precautions and know what to avoid, but still, sometimes you just have to be in tick-ridden areas and it's impractical to check yourself every hour.