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

121–130 of 166 posts

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

#121

Post by refurb »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #71
The5thElephant wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

It makes more sense when you realize most of the time it’s not . Doctors see thousands of patients per year and 99% of them have common conditions with straightforward diagnosis.

Add on top vague symptoms that can’t actually be measured and are subjective and you end up with challenging diagnoses.

I do agree that patients should educate themselves and advocate for themselves. Doctors aren’t perfect and they don’t know everything.

But it helps to have some perspective of what doctors deal with on a day to day basis.

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

#122

Post by refurb »

cco wrote: post #116
brady8 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Labcorp is one of several labs and most hospitals have their own labs and only send out specialized tests.

It is true - you can’t test every patient for everything. There is an estimated 1B primary care visits in the US each year. Assume every patient get 5 tests at $50 a test and you just spent a quarter of a trillion just on tests.

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

#123

Post by Klonoar »

speed_spread wrote: post #106
Klonoar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s wild that it had that effect for you with any form of IBS. I know two people with Crohns where it set off and irritated their systemd for months.

> irritated their systemd Ouch

Ha! I blame autocorrect, but I'm keeping it.

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

#124

Post by fsagx »

refurb wrote: post #122
cco wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Labcorp is one of several labs and most hospitals have their own labs and only send out specialized tests. It is true - you can’t test every patient for everything. There is an estimated 1B primary care visits in the US each year. Assume every patient get 5 tests at $50 a test and you just spent a quarter of a trillion just on tests.

The test itself for lyme must be inexpensive - The vet did a test for my dog as part of routine yearly office visit. I don't know if it's just in my area, or if it's common now.

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

#125

Post by fuzzfactor »

speed_spread wrote: post #106
Klonoar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s wild that it had that effect for you with any form of IBS. I know two people with Crohns where it set off and irritated their systemd for months.

> irritated their systemd Ouch

That's gotta hurt.

Then again if it irritates you, maybe it deserves a little disruption itself.

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

#126

Post by bflesch »

stinos wrote: post #120

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 indi…

The main problem with antibiotic resistance is meat industry where thousands of pigs or cows or chicken are stuck in the same place and all get administered high dose antibiotics for duration of their life until some weeks before they get slaughtered and sold.

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

#127

Post by fuzzfactor »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #117
dev1ycan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

It's purely anecdotal but does have some provenance going back at least to the 19th century, with one of the early liver specialists.

He was reportedly at a cocktail party one evening when a messenger burst in and informed the esteemed doctor that one of his patients appeared to be dying from a heart attack.

"My good man," he replied, "that can't possibly be true. When I treat a patient for liver disease he dies of liver disease."

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

#128

Post by diamondfist25 »

Years ago I suddenly had a swollen knee. So painful that I barely can walk. I dragged myself to Kaiser thinking that I torn something in my knee. Later on, it was diagnosed as arthritis

Doctor said it was incurable, and gave me a list of meds where the side effects looked worse than the disease.

I rejected it, and started examining every piece of data known to mankind.

This led to me to variety of things. First was biological, a new tech drug that’s super expensive and I had to be on it for life. I was only 30, and no way I’m taking a drug for life at this age. What if I get laid off (or go travel) and can’t afford the 5k price tag per dose for my entire life?

I then found other treatments, ones more natural but scorned on by the medical elite professionals. I went to Eastern Europe to do oxygen therapy.

I came back home, and was well. I told the clinic that I’m healed now and don’t need to come back for the biologic anymore. The staff at the clinic were appalled — they never heard of a case of someone getting healed and weaning off their meds

The medical system is here to squeeze everything from you. You are the top of the line revenue stream. Your health and wellbeing is in direct conflict of their objective function — make more money

Never forget this

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

#129

Post by diamondfist25 »

voidmain0001 wrote: post #56
Aurornis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The theory of persistent infection hasn't really held up. There were a few researchers who claimed to have some evidence, but it hasn't really been replicated. It's largely been dismissed from mainstream research. Sadly, it…

Is there a reason you refer to alternative medical communities in response to my comment? Considering I made no reference to using alternative medicine, what does it have to do with my comment? Do you have an agenda? I know that I don't have one and neither did my comment.

This is the bias that people have

They only trust the small sample of evidence that science provides, and dismisses the vastly unknown space that their science cannot comprehend

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

#130

Post by drooopy »

I've recently became friends with an individual who suffers from lingering chronic effects from Lyme disease. I'm never walking out in the countryside again without knee-high boots, jeans tugged in my socks and the strongest bug repellent spray that money can buy.
Post reply on HN