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 bitten and had a super itchy spot near my private regions. It was crazy itch and made a bullseye rash. I went to a clinic and they said they had never seen the bullseye rash and it was textbook Lyme disease (or one other common tick disease). Same was treated with Doxy and was fine. It’s an strange disease because if caught early super cheap antibiotics work well… but if has spread through your body it can take years to recover and be quite serious!
I literally used to get laughed out of the clinic, told I was a healthy young male and just needed to exercise more. After a decade of this, I was finally diagnosed with gout, something doctors had just been lying about testing for. No one could believe someone could have gout in their 20s (It's been developing since my late teens and I've generally had arthritis my entire life, since I was a child).
It took a physician's assistant, who happened to see me one day when both of my doctors were on their third extended vacation of the quarter, to hear my plight, take my suggestion of gout seriously, and do the leg work, also revealing to me that "full test panels" don't include uric acid by default and that my doctors had been lying to me about their thoroughness.
The assistant was also massively more knowledgeable about the disease, its history, the history of treatment, etc., and disease in general, than either of the two doctors running the clinic. Really opened my eyes.
This is why, although I know there will be problems with it, we should get AI and blood tests more accessible for individuals. Accessing the healthcare system for "I know I'm not 100% but ... I don't have anything specific wrong like a broken bone" is basically a crapshoot - and a totally stupid one.
I wonder if the medical textbooks only mention gout as a historical curiosity and not as a modern day disease. I have an older relative with gout, have met someone in their 30s with gout, and yesterday heard a story about an acquaintance with gout, so it's not that rare anymore.
I have seen young men get diagnosed with gout, but they were Islanders (Samoans and Maori in my case), who I believe are at a higher risk so doctors are more aware of it
Funny enough I also got diagnosed with gout once in my 20s. I have always had somewhat bad toes/bunions (probably partially genetic, and partially wearing only tight soccer shoes as a kid) and I went to a wedding wearing some new leather shoes that I hadn't broken in yet. The next day I woke up with a fever and horrific pain in the sides of my toes. Went to doctor and they did some tests and were also seemingly surprised at the results indicating gout. They asked me to come back in a week to double check, and by then my symptoms were gone and the tests no longer indicated gout.
> They asked me to come back in a week to double check, and by then my symptoms were gone and the tests no longer indicated gout.
Ha. Do you still have symptoms? If not, yea just a bad initial diagnosis. If you do still have symptoms sometimes though, it should be noted that gout is hard to test for when you're actively experiencing aggravated symptoms, as the uric acid crystals are lodged into your tissue and not freely available in the blood stream / urine. This exacerbated everything quite a lot, as when I was much younger I definitely got uric acid tests done when my symptoms were at their worst.
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.
American doctors are also reluctant to do rabies shot. Yeah they are expensive, the risk is low and there are ways to rule it out, but I'd rather not die. Other countries can get them anywhere for cheap. Here...thousands of dollars in the ER. One reason could be its just not administered enough. The other is, for profit American medical system because no one wants to die.
"Other countries can get them anywhere for cheap."
Those of us outside the US understand the US health care system is more profit orientated than many other countries but we cannot understand the huge price differentials, they're often huge in comparison with many others. Surely figures that high are nothing other than price-gouging. (Even if demand is low and the stuff has to be imported the additional costs can't be that costly. Surely not?)
So why doesn't consumer and or monopoly law kick in to stop it (as it does in many other places)?
Chronic Lyme Disease is a popular choice for hypochondriacs (or maybe they're actually right, who knows?) so it gets raised eyebrows when people think they have it.
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 winning strategy to ignore what they tell you most of the time.
- They are not trained nor selected for empathy or open-mindedness.
And you get so many medical errors.
Basically, you have to double-check everything they do, and endure their cynical rebuttal when you make suggestions, ask questions or try things they didn't request.
I had to face many such errors myself, two almost lethal.
When you can, shop for one that is both good and is open to discussion. But even then, there is a limit. At some point, your doctor WILL fail you, so you have to take responsibility, usually when you're weak and at a low point in your life.
And if you are wrong, people will tell you you should have listened to your doctor, but if the doctor is wrong, well, shit happens.
One of my practitioners is a friend of 15 years, I literally lived with him, he is considered top in his specialty. I'm surrounded by people working at the hospital.
He saved my life once.
Even that is not enough. I still have to double check stuff every time.
> At some point, your doctor WILL fail you, so you have to take responsibility, usually when you're weak and at a low point in your life.
The two times I've been hospitalized in my adult life, I've been incredibly thankful for my parents stepping in to act as my patient advocates, including pushing back on doctors when necessary. (The first hospitalization was guilliane-barre and the other a rare hemotological condition, so i wasn't in a great place in either scenario to advocate for myself).
A pediatrician in my family has said that patients get significantly better outcomes when they have a patient advocate, because even if they are directly related to you (i.e. parents or sibling), they are going to be far better at being objective on the situation than you, the person being affected by it, is
I suspect AI chosen by an organization trying to maximize profits could be really bad.
This is an industry that places people’s lives as vastly less important than minor scheduling issues as someone working 12+ hours is seen as perfectly normal.
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.
"Basically, you have to double-check everything they do, and endure their cynical rebuttal when you make suggestions, ask questions or try things they didn't request."
I had frequent headaches and the student health service referred me to a well-known and very respected hospital for tests as an outpatient. The doctor to whom I was referred was a well-known neurologist with papers to his name—probably the most eminent neurologist in the country at the time (even now, some decades after his death, his name appears on Wiki as someone of eminence).
He then sent me for a series of tests at the hospital and they extended over a number of days although not consecutive (which was inconvenient). Those tests were rather exhaustive and included amongst others neurological tests, brain x-rays, electroencephalographs and testing my eyes including injecting fluorescein into my veins to improve the contrast of the photos they took of my eyes/retina—afterwards I was pissing out that brilliant florescent yellow dye for the better part of a day.
Keep in mind that those tests involved other doctors and clinicians who would have examined the neurologists report, so decisions weren't taken in isolation.
After all that and multiple visits to the hospital he said that they could find nothing wrong with me and suggested that I be admitted for at least three days for further tests! I declined as I was about to have uni exams and never did return to be admitted.
Several months later I visited a local GP practitioner because I'd had a bad dose of the flu and after he'd dealt with that I mentioned my ordeal at the hospital.
He was palpably furious and mumbled quietly under his breath which was just audible enough for me to hear "fucking idiots". Within a split second he went on to say "presumably during all this testing no one actually suggested that you might have migraine?" to which I replied "no". That made him even more annoyed.
He then prescribed a common Parke Davis formulation called Ergodryl, which, back then, was a common go-to drug for migraine, it's a formulation of egotamine tartrate, caffeine and diphenhydramine (a well-known antihistamine).
Problem solved, that drug completely killed my headaches. I've never forgotten that incident and although I've experienced similar inept performances I've never experienced one on that scale again. Ever since I've never fully trusted a medical diagnosis unless confirmed by second options and backed up with tests. It pays to be not only cautions but also to do one's own independent investigations.
From my experience, not all doctors are mediocre to the extent that I'd wished I'd seen another, some I've visited are quite exceptional and have an innate ability to cut to the core of a problem immediately, or at least start investigations on the right footing. Unfortunately, from my experience, they seem few and far between in numbers.
I was once introduced to a state director of health (the State's top medical officer) through a common interest outside of medicine and I got to know him relatively well. Some time later I mentioned that incident and he said to me without hesitation that he would not trust 90% of his profession to make a competent diagnosis, and he went on to say that if I were ever to be stricken by some dangerous life-threatening disease that I was to give him a call and he'd provide me with a short list of the competent ones who he'd trust—one's that he would go to if he became sick. Fortunately, to date I've never had need to take up his offer.
Frankly, for the lay person this has to be a significant worry. How on earth does one know who is competent and who is not, especially if it's at short notice?
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."
It makes more sense when you realize most of the time it’s not <disease>. 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.
The majority of doctors I've interacted with, with a low-single-digit number of notable exceptions, seemed to estimate their own intelligence at about 1 or 2 stddev higher than it actually was. Combine this with (I imagine) a large number of legitimately stupid and/or hypochondriac patients, and you have a recipe for really shitty diagnostics.
My wife got a tick bite in Indiana. Went to Wisconsin shortly after, and developed bullseye rash. Went to clinic and they told her she couldn’t get Lyme’s in Indiana. She insisted on a test. Positive. Doxy cleared it.
always have to argue with a doctor to get a lyme test. i'm like come on please i spend a lot of time in the woods idgaf what you think i'm paying for it
have no idea, never heard of that. i'm an idiot when it comes to my health care. i've only ever been to the doctor when i have a problem. have been in and out of health insurance so to me going to the doctor is an extremely expensive thing to avoid. especially when doctors are dismissive about whatever issue i come with. i've never been for preventative care, don't even know what i would say when they ask what i'm there for.
I have been suffering from Lyme disease for over 15 years but I just discovered it was Lyme 2 years ago. I had a negative test first but did not trust it and did a test at a specialised lab in Germany and that came back positive. From what I hear is that the normal antibodies test only works for 50%.
Suffering from Lyme is brutal, and you look fine from the outside so it's hard for others to relate too, it attacks your whole system and if it's in your brain and nerve system it can make you feel heavily depressed and anxious like you have PTSD, this makes social events feel like a warzone.
For a period of time I could bairly talk, I just could not find the words anymore. If friends or family of my get a tick bit I always suggest them to get antibotics even if you did not have a bullseye, better safe than sorry and the risk is of getting it is way greater than what the antibiotics will do to your body.
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.
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.
Not a tangent! I certainly appreciate the semantics, and there seems to be some academic interest in the semantics alone! Some Lyme researchers would like to call it “Lyme Disease Facial Palsy” or LDFP to encourage practitioners to differentiate early. Not sure that would’ve helped me, I had no bullseye rash and no fever, just horrible fatigue and facial paralysis. The idea would be to encourage practitioners in Lyme-prone locations to see Bell’s, test for Lyme, which I think your point about overlooking the link between condition and the cause supports. Lyme showed up on a blood test my PCP ordered only after I completed a course of prednisone with no improvement and much misery. He didn’t even tell me he added a Lyme test, but I’m glad he did!
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 discovered a tick attached to yourself recently.
I don't know why you're being down voted, of course you can't test for everything, and you're going to start with the most likely causes.
The frustrating part for me is when people think of the symptom as the cause. Like they understand that multiple things can cause a fever, but they don't understand that multiple things can cause bronchitis.
When I was a kid I had "sinusitis" multiple times a year, but my doctor never explained to me that it could be the same or different causes. When I learned that '-itis' just meant inflammation, it blew my mind. I have done my best to spread that knowledge ever since.
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.
Yeah I agree that’s what happened to me. Alas, no tick, no rash, and I’m not sure my PCP in New York City sees a ton of Lyme. Still, I’m glad he caught it when he did!
Doxycycline is my favorite antibiotic and the most effective against chronic sinusitis and chronic prostatitis for me. I only take it maybe once a year, but it does wonders for a good long time.
It also cured my nearly lifelong IBS-D about a decade ago. I had a small re-occurrence of IBS-D last year after so many years without it. I was able to convince the doc that it fixed it for me in the past, so he prescribed me doxycycline again. Boom! All fixed just like before.
I have no idea why that particular antibiotic does the trick, but I've taken so many others from amoxicillin line, bactrim, even cipro, flagyl (gross) etc. and only doxy is the silver bullet for me it seems.
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.
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.
I had a co-worker that had a Bell's Palsy diagnosis and it turned out to be Lyme disease. Don't know which antibiotic they took, but he did get clear of it in a few months.
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?
My kid contracted it from a tick bite while camping in Ontario; it showed as joint pain in the legs that would come and go for like a week at a time. Made it tough to explain to the doctors as by the time we'd get there, he'd be fine again.
In the end it was four weeks of doxycycline— that was several months ago and it doesn't seem to have recurred, thankfully.
A couple of years ago I had about 10 tick bites and one of them resulted in the signature bull’s-eye rash. Thankfully, I was aware of the ticks and I was checking for the bull’s-eye rash to appear and it got treated with doxycycline.
Many people face symptoms months after the bite or they might not remember getting bitten by a tick so it’s common that it is misdiagnosed and they get all kinds of ineffective and / or unnecessary meds, so I added it to my “list of illnesses to check” in case I ever get unexplainable neurological issues, fatigue and joint problems.
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).
This 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.
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.
> 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).
I have a friend who worked in research for rare, chronic, and misunderstood diseases for a few years. Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS or just PTLD) is well accept by now.
The problem they encountered was that so many of the people who presented with "Chronic Lyme" diagnoses were either self-diagnosed from the internet or diagnosed by uninformed primary care doctors who used it as a catch-all for symptoms they couldn't diagnose. Many had never received positive test results, or they had received positive test results from cash-pay alternative medicine labs who used their own in-house alternate tests.
It was really depressing to hear stories about people who had been misled into spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on things like year-long courses of expensive, IV antibiotics for a condition they most likely did not have. Even the idea of a persistent infection hasn't held up to scrutiny. The current line of thinking is shown in this article, where persistent particles of past infection might cause ongoing immune-related symptoms. Those symptoms would not respond to the high-dose, long-term antibiotic therapy pushed by the alternative medicine Lyme treatment providers, obviously.
So while it's a difficult topic, having some better mechanism to separate the verified Lyme cases from the self-diagnosed or those wrongly diagnosed is actually very important for improving acceptance of the condition. It's tragic that many with persistent symptoms of true Lyme infections have been dismissed, but it's also tragic that many with non-Lyme conditions have been misled into thinking that "Chronic Lyme" is the explanation for all of their problems contrary to the evidence. Getting the latter group out of the "Chronic Lyme" mindset and on to a path where their true underlying condition can be addressed, whatever it may be, is a win for them.
This. It's been very hard to separate out "Chronic Lyme Disease" as an unfalsifiable self-diagnosis from "Lyme Disease That Which Has Chronic Sequelae", which is fairly well accepted by most infectious disease doctors I know.
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.
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.
I had an interesting run-in with chronic (-ish) illness. I got some random flu-like virus in late 2019 (I don't think it was covid, although I was living in HK at the time). Whatever it was, it really screwed me up and left me with a bunch of weird symptoms (e.g. dizziness/vertigo) that had me pretty incapacitated for a few months.
Thankfully the symptoms abated eventually, but doctors couldn't really find anything and none of the diagnostic tests turned up anything that interesting. Ultimately they thought it was probably minor viral encephalitis, but the diagnostics for this are quite bad, so no confirmation either way.
You can't really convince doctors that you're not the kind of person with a propensity for imagined symptoms (probably a lot of hypochondriacs tell them that), so there's not really anything you can say to argue when a doctor implies you're just imagining things.
That and other experiences made me realize:
A) diagnostic technology is really quite poor (e.g. at the time, only one lab (one of the UC schools, I forget which) was even theoretically capable of testing for encephalitic viruses outside of 2-3 very common ones, and all of the tests had ridiculous limitations on e.g. sensitivity window)
B) most doctors really overestimate their own intelligence, and they act accordingly
C) you and your friends/family are the only ones who (can afford to) actually care about and put serious effort into your medical outcomes. If you actually want to get good medical results, you basically just have to diagnose yourself and convince some doctor to go along with it without triggering their sense of superiority
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.
> 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.
I know someone who has been suffering from what they call "chronic lyme" for years. These people are painfully well aware of the unlikeliness of antibiotics fixing them, and they're very much aware of the problems being caused by antibiotics. But the alternative ("doing nothing") isn't helping them either, so they cling to the hope that the antibiotics will do "something".
It doesn't help that they're stigmatised. They're "lazy". They're "faking it". It isn't a "real disease". None of that helps them. Maybe the antibiotics don't help them either, but at least they have a chance of doing something.
Yes, and they use non-specific testing that will produce a positive result in most people.
There's a massive scam industry around Lyme and it's a shame because it interferes with legitimate suffers' ability to get honest treatment. Or worse, sends those who don't have Lyme down a rabbit hole where their actual condition is never treated.
I read an account here years ago of someone that tried everything and as a last resort did a 2-3 week fast under doctors supervision and it cured it. I always thought I would try this if I got LD.
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.
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.
Lyme disease does exist on the west coast, including in the Bay Area. A friend in Los Altos got Lyme disease from a tick in her yard. This is the worst time of year for ticks in the Bay Area. I've picked off over 100 ticks while doing field work in Henry Coe State Park. The one advantage we have on the west coast is that our ticks are larger and you usually notice when one starts crawling on your skin and especially when one bites you.
A friend from Sacramento visited me in SoCal and brought his dog along. We hung out for a few days, and eventually I found a bullseye rash on my leg but no tick anywhere on my body. I went to urgent care and they recommended I see an infectious disease specialist, pronto -- and to start doxy that evening. My bloodwork came back with too few markers for them to call it a case of Lyme disease, but the specialist felt strongly that we made the right decision to use the antibiotics.
Everyone always told me there is no Lyme disease in NorCal. Reading your comment helped me feel vindicated.
Simple way to detect if you're in an area with ticks: tape a white washcloth to a long stick and swish it back and forth around the ground. Check the cloth for ticks every so often and you'll find the tick "hotspots" and can avoid them. Permethrin-treated clothing is also fantastic for protecting against ticks - it's just highly toxic to water life and cats in liquid form.
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.
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.
I think it is even broader than that. It is removing any potential opposition. That opposition is independent institutions, such as universities, but also the truth itself. If there's no one to research things, then how will you know if something is "true" or not? If there's no one to communicate those findings, how will anyone find out? Etc.
> 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.
> 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).
"...doxycycline (and other generic antibiotics) wreak havoc on the microbiome, killing beneficial bacteria in the gut and causing troubling side effects..."
Doxycycline is used as prophylaxis for a wide variety of pathogens; either the risk is tolerable with them, or the alarm is needlessly elevated.
Troubling side effects, from my experience being treated for Lyme with doxy is diarrhea for a while.
I'll fucking take that all day long to get rid of Lyme. It sucks out loud. Every one of my joints was killing me. Even the useless little joints in my pinky toe.
For more info on Lyme and related difficult to identify diseases, NYT columnist Ross Douhat wrote a book about his experience w/ Lyme and his ongoing adaptations. It's called...
The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery
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 research. But make no mistake: cutting off research funding is exactly what is happening. And that has practically nothing to do with antisemitism.
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.
I was listening to an interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky the writer and his theory was conservatives have a love/hate relationship with sciences (and arts and academia). Paraphrasing from memory - if some thing or someone reinforces their belief system they love it, and they despise it when it contradicts them, this effort against science is to get a reality (scientific results) to agree with their preconceived notions. The bonus is suffocating dissent of any kind against those in power. The context was this was about his book about exobiology and authoritarian governments, Alien Clay.
Anti-semitism is just the convenient cover, likewise pro Palestinian protesters are judged to be interfering with USA international relations (wrt Israel) by the Secretary of State under one clause of Immigration and Nationality Act that they use to justify legal immigrants to be kidnapped and deported.
In two new studies led by bacteriologist Brandon L. Jutras, Northwestern scientists have identified an antibiotic that cures Lyme disease at a fraction of the dosage of the current “gold standard” treatment and discovered what may cause a treated infection to mimic chronic illness in patients. The studies were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
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.
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.
I had a tick bite years about with bullseye and didn’t get treated. I’ve had Lyme disease-related symptoms ever since, but and assume from what I’ve read it’s too late to do anything about it. Would this treatment still help or am I still fucked?
It is purely anecdotal but I read a post here years ago about someone that had a 10 year battle with Lyme disease, had gone through rounds of antibiotics and it always came back. He finally heard that maybe long fasts (2 weeks) might help, tried it and his symptoms went away. Just mentioning it because it seems relevant. I always thought should it happen to me, I would give a 2 week fast a try, under a doctor's supervision.
There was, withdrawn in 2002. Protection wanes so even if you were one of the few who got it then you have no protection today. There are a couple new vaccines in the works, one in phase 3 testing so hopefully we get something in a few years.
True, and I suppose the patent is expired by now so you could in theory start making it. Though the FDA has rules about how you can produce such things. Probably better for a company to risk/start a new vaccine which they can patent and thus get some benefit that way vs one out of patent. Also just because you can legally make it doesn't mean it is practical. It may require other things that are not longer made, or specific equipment that would be expensive to recreate. Still this is an opportunity for someone in India (where a lot of generic drugs are made already, though the country doesn't matter) if they want to.
I don't hike as much in areas where Lyme is common as I used to, but I'd still take a vaccine if I could. (I didn't know the vaccine existed in 2001 or I would have)
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.
iirc the vaccines stopped the tick from successfully transferring the bacteria. it didn't make the body able to better combat it. (and if you read the article linked it explains that its not actually the killing of the spirochete that is the problem its the remains of it and how the host body responds to those remains.)
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
Our kid got bit by a tick. Was lucky enough that it had the bulls eye pattern and was able to look it up. She got a crazy high temperature. Was crazy. A strong antibiotic cleared it up.
I really wish there still was a vaccine available (for humans). I treat my pant legs and jacket sleeves with permethrin, which slowly kills the ticks - but does so usually before they would attempt to bite. One of the better camping tricks that I've applied to everyday life.
Duct tape inside out at the top of your socks under your pants does wonders as well. We couldn't find permethrin during COVID, so we did that. It worked mostly. The big bastards didn't get stuck, but they're easy to see. It was the little deer and seed ticks that got stuck. So that's a win.
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
In clinical trials - the one I was able to find has the first report due end of 2026, with the final end of 2027. I assume 6 months or a year after that to do paperwork before approval so I'm guessing late 2028 before we get it (assuming it passes trial, which isn't a given)
"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.
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.
> 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's still a favored theory in many alternative medicine communities. It's also a really contentious topic. There's a long history, including Lyme researchers leaving the field after receiving death threats following publication of research that didn't agree with the alternative medicine theories.
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.
Big things are easier to eradicate, especially if they are slow, unaccustomed to being prey, and nutritious.
Eradicating a bacterium with wild animal reservoir populations (deer, white-footed mice, black-legged ticks, all of which are endemic species) is ... a much harder problem.
Strangely enough, there's even some likelihood that killing off the passenger pigeon actually promoted Borrelia burgdorferi. The passenger pigeon's main food source was tree mast. Large flocks of pigeons would descend and clear the forest floor of food. After it went extinct, the population of small animals which also eat tree mast exploded, and these are reservoir species for Borrelia.
Good time to remind people that right next to the town of Lyme CT is Plum Island Animal Disease Center, who happened to be researching tick based disease transmission when Lyme disease was first discovered (named after the town that had the first case). Crazy coincidence.
Evidence of bacterium that causes Lyme disease was also found in the 5000+ year old "Iceman" mummy found in the alps. People have described the disease in the 1700s, 1800s and in the 1900s prior to the outbreak in Lyme. Ticks preserved alongside their animal hosts in 1800s biologic samples also are found to have it. Genetic sequencing of different bacteria samples suggests a much older evolutionary tree than a few decades existence.
Bioweapon researchers use existing bacteria and virus to enhance them for weapon usage (I.e. coronavius gain of function research). So the fact that the bacterium previously existed in nature does not disprove that a version engineered to be spread via ticks was released.
Not really. Isn't the best place to open a center that "researches tick based disease transmission" somewhere that's close proximity to a hot-spot for ticks that transmit diseases?
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 bitten and had a super itchy spot near my private regions. It was crazy itch and made a bullseye rash. I went to a clinic and they said they had never seen the bullseye rash and it was textbook Lyme disease (or one other common tick disease). Same was treated with Doxy and was fine. It’s an strange disease because if caught early super cheap antibiotics work well… but if has spread through your body it can take years to recover and be quite serious!
Why have I heard so many stories of doctors not wanting to diagnose something as Lyme disease?
I literally used to get laughed out of the clinic, told I was a healthy young male and just needed to exercise more. After a decade of this, I was finally diagnosed with gout, something doctors had just been lying about testing for. No one could believe someone could have gout in their 20s (It's been developing since my late teens and I've generally had arthritis my entire life, since I was a child).
It took a physician's assistant, who happened to see me one day when both of my doctors were on their third extended vacation of the quarter, to hear my plight, take my suggestion of gout seriously, and do the leg work, also revealing to me that "full test panels" don't include uric acid by default and that my doctors had been lying to me about their thoroughness.
The assistant was also massively more knowledgeable about the disease, its history, the history of treatment, etc., and disease in general, than either of the two doctors running the clinic. Really opened my eyes.
This is why, although I know there will be problems with it, we should get AI and blood tests more accessible for individuals. Accessing the healthcare system for "I know I'm not 100% but ... I don't have anything specific wrong like a broken bone" is basically a crapshoot - and a totally stupid one.
I wonder if the medical textbooks only mention gout as a historical curiosity and not as a modern day disease. I have an older relative with gout, have met someone in their 30s with gout, and yesterday heard a story about an acquaintance with gout, so it's not that rare anymore.
I have seen young men get diagnosed with gout, but they were Islanders (Samoans and Maori in my case), who I believe are at a higher risk so doctors are more aware of it
Funny enough I also got diagnosed with gout once in my 20s. I have always had somewhat bad toes/bunions (probably partially genetic, and partially wearing only tight soccer shoes as a kid) and I went to a wedding wearing some new leather shoes that I hadn't broken in yet. The next day I woke up with a fever and horrific pain in the sides of my toes. Went to doctor and they did some tests and were also seemingly surprised at the results indicating gout. They asked me to come back in a week to double check, and by then my symptoms were gone and the tests no longer indicated gout.
Our bodies are such strange mechanisms.
> They asked me to come back in a week to double check, and by then my symptoms were gone and the tests no longer indicated gout.
Ha. Do you still have symptoms? If not, yea just a bad initial diagnosis. If you do still have symptoms sometimes though, it should be noted that gout is hard to test for when you're actively experiencing aggravated symptoms, as the uric acid crystals are lodged into your tissue and not freely available in the blood stream / urine. This exacerbated everything quite a lot, as when I was much younger I definitely got uric acid tests done when my symptoms were at their worst.
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.
American doctors are also reluctant to do rabies shot. Yeah they are expensive, the risk is low and there are ways to rule it out, but I'd rather not die. Other countries can get them anywhere for cheap. Here...thousands of dollars in the ER. One reason could be its just not administered enough. The other is, for profit American medical system because no one wants to die.
"Other countries can get them anywhere for cheap."
Those of us outside the US understand the US health care system is more profit orientated than many other countries but we cannot understand the huge price differentials, they're often huge in comparison with many others. Surely figures that high are nothing other than price-gouging. (Even if demand is low and the stuff has to be imported the additional costs can't be that costly. Surely not?)
So why doesn't consumer and or monopoly law kick in to stop it (as it does in many other places)?
Chronic Lyme Disease is a popular choice for hypochondriacs (or maybe they're actually right, who knows?) so it gets raised eyebrows when people think they have it.
Lyme Disease : PCPs :: Lupus : Dr. House?
Doctors are trained to be arrogant, dismissive of unknown unknowns, and with a terrible understanding of statistics.
Add to that:
And you get so many medical errors.Basically, you have to double-check everything they do, and endure their cynical rebuttal when you make suggestions, ask questions or try things they didn't request.
I had to face many such errors myself, two almost lethal.
When you can, shop for one that is both good and is open to discussion. But even then, there is a limit. At some point, your doctor WILL fail you, so you have to take responsibility, usually when you're weak and at a low point in your life.
And if you are wrong, people will tell you you should have listened to your doctor, but if the doctor is wrong, well, shit happens.
One of my practitioners is a friend of 15 years, I literally lived with him, he is considered top in his specialty. I'm surrounded by people working at the hospital.
He saved my life once.
Even that is not enough. I still have to double check stuff every time.
> At some point, your doctor WILL fail you, so you have to take responsibility, usually when you're weak and at a low point in your life.
The two times I've been hospitalized in my adult life, I've been incredibly thankful for my parents stepping in to act as my patient advocates, including pushing back on doctors when necessary. (The first hospitalization was guilliane-barre and the other a rare hemotological condition, so i wasn't in a great place in either scenario to advocate for myself).
A pediatrician in my family has said that patients get significantly better outcomes when they have a patient advocate, because even if they are directly related to you (i.e. parents or sibling), they are going to be far better at being objective on the situation than you, the person being affected by it, is
Makes you question, how bad could an all encompassing AI be at diagnosing given enough multimodal data
I suspect AI chosen by an organization trying to maximize profits could be really bad.
This is an industry that places people’s lives as vastly less important than minor scheduling issues as someone working 12+ hours is seen as perfectly normal.
Another perspective on the underlying issue—do you suppose that MDs will be more easily replaceable with AI than nurses will be?
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.
I would say, it depends. I also have a lot of colleagues who overtest out of paranoia and risk avoidance.
"Basically, you have to double-check everything they do, and endure their cynical rebuttal when you make suggestions, ask questions or try things they didn't request."
I had frequent headaches and the student health service referred me to a well-known and very respected hospital for tests as an outpatient. The doctor to whom I was referred was a well-known neurologist with papers to his name—probably the most eminent neurologist in the country at the time (even now, some decades after his death, his name appears on Wiki as someone of eminence).
He then sent me for a series of tests at the hospital and they extended over a number of days although not consecutive (which was inconvenient). Those tests were rather exhaustive and included amongst others neurological tests, brain x-rays, electroencephalographs and testing my eyes including injecting fluorescein into my veins to improve the contrast of the photos they took of my eyes/retina—afterwards I was pissing out that brilliant florescent yellow dye for the better part of a day.
Keep in mind that those tests involved other doctors and clinicians who would have examined the neurologists report, so decisions weren't taken in isolation.
After all that and multiple visits to the hospital he said that they could find nothing wrong with me and suggested that I be admitted for at least three days for further tests! I declined as I was about to have uni exams and never did return to be admitted.
Several months later I visited a local GP practitioner because I'd had a bad dose of the flu and after he'd dealt with that I mentioned my ordeal at the hospital.
He was palpably furious and mumbled quietly under his breath which was just audible enough for me to hear "fucking idiots". Within a split second he went on to say "presumably during all this testing no one actually suggested that you might have migraine?" to which I replied "no". That made him even more annoyed.
He then prescribed a common Parke Davis formulation called Ergodryl, which, back then, was a common go-to drug for migraine, it's a formulation of egotamine tartrate, caffeine and diphenhydramine (a well-known antihistamine).
Problem solved, that drug completely killed my headaches. I've never forgotten that incident and although I've experienced similar inept performances I've never experienced one on that scale again. Ever since I've never fully trusted a medical diagnosis unless confirmed by second options and backed up with tests. It pays to be not only cautions but also to do one's own independent investigations.
From my experience, not all doctors are mediocre to the extent that I'd wished I'd seen another, some I've visited are quite exceptional and have an innate ability to cut to the core of a problem immediately, or at least start investigations on the right footing. Unfortunately, from my experience, they seem few and far between in numbers.
I was once introduced to a state director of health (the State's top medical officer) through a common interest outside of medicine and I got to know him relatively well. Some time later I mentioned that incident and he said to me without hesitation that he would not trust 90% of his profession to make a competent diagnosis, and he went on to say that if I were ever to be stricken by some dangerous life-threatening disease that I was to give him a call and he'd provide me with a short list of the competent ones who he'd trust—one's that he would go to if he became sick. Fortunately, to date I've never had need to take up his offer.
Frankly, for the lay person this has to be a significant worry. How on earth does one know who is competent and who is not, especially if it's at short notice?
"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."
It makes more sense when you realize most of the time it’s not <disease>. 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.
The majority of doctors I've interacted with, with a low-single-digit number of notable exceptions, seemed to estimate their own intelligence at about 1 or 2 stddev higher than it actually was. Combine this with (I imagine) a large number of legitimately stupid and/or hypochondriac patients, and you have a recipe for really shitty diagnostics.
My wife got a tick bite in Indiana. Went to Wisconsin shortly after, and developed bullseye rash. Went to clinic and they told her she couldn’t get Lyme’s in Indiana. She insisted on a test. Positive. Doxy cleared it.
always have to argue with a doctor to get a lyme test. i'm like come on please i spend a lot of time in the woods idgaf what you think i'm paying for it
Why don't you order one through labcorp in that case? Can't one just order and pay for bloodwork directly through a lab without a physician visit?
I am a physician in the US and have done this before (prior to medical school), so I had always thought it was (still) possible.
Labcorp doesn't appear to have a lyme test easily available to the public, but Quest does:
https://www.questhealth.com/product/lyme-disease-test-with-c...
have no idea, never heard of that. i'm an idiot when it comes to my health care. i've only ever been to the doctor when i have a problem. have been in and out of health insurance so to me going to the doctor is an extremely expensive thing to avoid. especially when doctors are dismissive about whatever issue i come with. i've never been for preventative care, don't even know what i would say when they ask what i'm there for.
I found this break down helpful from the study: https://danielcameronmd.com/could-piperacillin-be-the-lyme-d...
1. The Study Was in Mice, Not Humans 2. Mice Don’t Develop Chronic Symptoms 3. No Co-Infections 4. IV-Only Formulation
Another promising and more tested treatment is that of doctor Richard I. Horowitz: https://sciprofiles.com/publication/view/834d15f5acf0268c9bc...
I have been suffering from Lyme disease for over 15 years but I just discovered it was Lyme 2 years ago. I had a negative test first but did not trust it and did a test at a specialised lab in Germany and that came back positive. From what I hear is that the normal antibodies test only works for 50%.
Suffering from Lyme is brutal, and you look fine from the outside so it's hard for others to relate too, it attacks your whole system and if it's in your brain and nerve system it can make you feel heavily depressed and anxious like you have PTSD, this makes social events feel like a warzone.
For a period of time I could bairly talk, I just could not find the words anymore. If friends or family of my get a tick bit I always suggest them to get antibotics even if you did not have a bullseye, better safe than sorry and the risk is of getting it is way greater than what the antibiotics will do to your body.
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.
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.
Not a tangent! I certainly appreciate the semantics, and there seems to be some academic interest in the semantics alone! Some Lyme researchers would like to call it “Lyme Disease Facial Palsy” or LDFP to encourage practitioners to differentiate early. Not sure that would’ve helped me, I had no bullseye rash and no fever, just horrible fatigue and facial paralysis. The idea would be to encourage practitioners in Lyme-prone locations to see Bell’s, test for Lyme, which I think your point about overlooking the link between condition and the cause supports. Lyme showed up on a blood test my PCP ordered only after I completed a course of prednisone with no improvement and much misery. He didn’t even tell me he added a Lyme test, but I’m glad he did!
Here’s one paper on the topic I remember reading at the time: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8791801/
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 discovered a tick attached to yourself recently.
I don't know why you're being down voted, of course you can't test for everything, and you're going to start with the most likely causes.
The frustrating part for me is when people think of the symptom as the cause. Like they understand that multiple things can cause a fever, but they don't understand that multiple things can cause bronchitis.
When I was a kid I had "sinusitis" multiple times a year, but my doctor never explained to me that it could be the same or different causes. When I learned that '-itis' just meant inflammation, it blew my mind. I have done my best to spread that knowledge ever since.
> 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.
Yeah I agree that’s what happened to me. Alas, no tick, no rash, and I’m not sure my PCP in New York City sees a ton of Lyme. Still, I’m glad he caught it when he did!
Do you have trouble reading other people's emotions?
No, I could clearly tell they were angry. I just never understood why some people get angry about minor corrections.
Do you?
Doxycycline is my favorite antibiotic and the most effective against chronic sinusitis and chronic prostatitis for me. I only take it maybe once a year, but it does wonders for a good long time.
It also cured my nearly lifelong IBS-D about a decade ago. I had a small re-occurrence of IBS-D last year after so many years without it. I was able to convince the doc that it fixed it for me in the past, so he prescribed me doxycycline again. Boom! All fixed just like before.
I have no idea why that particular antibiotic does the trick, but I've taken so many others from amoxicillin line, bactrim, even cipro, flagyl (gross) etc. and only doxy is the silver bullet for me it seems.
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.
That's gotta hurt.
Then again if it irritates you, maybe it deserves a little disruption itself.
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.
Which probiotic?
Option+ 30B CFU. It was on sale at a pharmacy that was in a convenient area. I bought based on it being discounted and having average CFU.
I had a co-worker that had a Bell's Palsy diagnosis and it turned out to be Lyme disease. Don't know which antibiotic they took, but he did get clear of it in a few months.
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?
Oh yeah, it just took time. Pill-based probiotics didn’t seem to work, but food (or time) did after a couple months.
My kid contracted it from a tick bite while camping in Ontario; it showed as joint pain in the legs that would come and go for like a week at a time. Made it tough to explain to the doctors as by the time we'd get there, he'd be fine again.
In the end it was four weeks of doxycycline— that was several months ago and it doesn't seem to have recurred, thankfully.
A couple of years ago I had about 10 tick bites and one of them resulted in the signature bull’s-eye rash. Thankfully, I was aware of the ticks and I was checking for the bull’s-eye rash to appear and it got treated with doxycycline.
Many people face symptoms months after the bite or they might not remember getting bitten by a tick so it’s common that it is misdiagnosed and they get all kinds of ineffective and / or unnecessary meds, so I added it to my “list of illnesses to check” in case I ever get unexplainable neurological issues, fatigue and joint problems.
> 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.
This 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.
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.
> 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).
I have a friend who worked in research for rare, chronic, and misunderstood diseases for a few years. Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS or just PTLD) is well accept by now.
The problem they encountered was that so many of the people who presented with "Chronic Lyme" diagnoses were either self-diagnosed from the internet or diagnosed by uninformed primary care doctors who used it as a catch-all for symptoms they couldn't diagnose. Many had never received positive test results, or they had received positive test results from cash-pay alternative medicine labs who used their own in-house alternate tests.
It was really depressing to hear stories about people who had been misled into spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on things like year-long courses of expensive, IV antibiotics for a condition they most likely did not have. Even the idea of a persistent infection hasn't held up to scrutiny. The current line of thinking is shown in this article, where persistent particles of past infection might cause ongoing immune-related symptoms. Those symptoms would not respond to the high-dose, long-term antibiotic therapy pushed by the alternative medicine Lyme treatment providers, obviously.
So while it's a difficult topic, having some better mechanism to separate the verified Lyme cases from the self-diagnosed or those wrongly diagnosed is actually very important for improving acceptance of the condition. It's tragic that many with persistent symptoms of true Lyme infections have been dismissed, but it's also tragic that many with non-Lyme conditions have been misled into thinking that "Chronic Lyme" is the explanation for all of their problems contrary to the evidence. Getting the latter group out of the "Chronic Lyme" mindset and on to a path where their true underlying condition can be addressed, whatever it may be, is a win for them.
This. It's been very hard to separate out "Chronic Lyme Disease" as an unfalsifiable self-diagnosis from "Lyme Disease That Which Has Chronic Sequelae", which is fairly well accepted by most infectious disease doctors I know.
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.
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.
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.
I had an interesting run-in with chronic (-ish) illness. I got some random flu-like virus in late 2019 (I don't think it was covid, although I was living in HK at the time). Whatever it was, it really screwed me up and left me with a bunch of weird symptoms (e.g. dizziness/vertigo) that had me pretty incapacitated for a few months.
Thankfully the symptoms abated eventually, but doctors couldn't really find anything and none of the diagnostic tests turned up anything that interesting. Ultimately they thought it was probably minor viral encephalitis, but the diagnostics for this are quite bad, so no confirmation either way.
You can't really convince doctors that you're not the kind of person with a propensity for imagined symptoms (probably a lot of hypochondriacs tell them that), so there's not really anything you can say to argue when a doctor implies you're just imagining things.
That and other experiences made me realize:
A) diagnostic technology is really quite poor (e.g. at the time, only one lab (one of the UC schools, I forget which) was even theoretically capable of testing for encephalitic viruses outside of 2-3 very common ones, and all of the tests had ridiculous limitations on e.g. sensitivity window)
B) most doctors really overestimate their own intelligence, and they act accordingly
C) you and your friends/family are the only ones who (can afford to) actually care about and put serious effort into your medical outcomes. If you actually want to get good medical results, you basically just have to diagnose yourself and convince some doctor to go along with it without triggering their sense of superiority
The studies mentioned (but not linked?): https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cluster=179...
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cluster=384...
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.
> 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.
I know someone who has been suffering from what they call "chronic lyme" for years. These people are painfully well aware of the unlikeliness of antibiotics fixing them, and they're very much aware of the problems being caused by antibiotics. But the alternative ("doing nothing") isn't helping them either, so they cling to the hope that the antibiotics will do "something".
It doesn't help that they're stigmatised. They're "lazy". They're "faking it". It isn't a "real disease". None of that helps them. Maybe the antibiotics don't help them either, but at least they have a chance of doing something.
Yes, and they use non-specific testing that will produce a positive result in most people.
There's a massive scam industry around Lyme and it's a shame because it interferes with legitimate suffers' ability to get honest treatment. Or worse, sends those who don't have Lyme down a rabbit hole where their actual condition is never treated.
I read an account here years ago of someone that tried everything and as a last resort did a 2-3 week fast under doctors supervision and it cured it. I always thought I would try this if I got LD.
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.
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.
Lyme disease does exist on the west coast, including in the Bay Area. A friend in Los Altos got Lyme disease from a tick in her yard. This is the worst time of year for ticks in the Bay Area. I've picked off over 100 ticks while doing field work in Henry Coe State Park. The one advantage we have on the west coast is that our ticks are larger and you usually notice when one starts crawling on your skin and especially when one bites you.
A friend from Sacramento visited me in SoCal and brought his dog along. We hung out for a few days, and eventually I found a bullseye rash on my leg but no tick anywhere on my body. I went to urgent care and they recommended I see an infectious disease specialist, pronto -- and to start doxy that evening. My bloodwork came back with too few markers for them to call it a case of Lyme disease, but the specialist felt strongly that we made the right decision to use the antibiotics.
Everyone always told me there is no Lyme disease in NorCal. Reading your comment helped me feel vindicated.
Simple way to detect if you're in an area with ticks: tape a white washcloth to a long stick and swish it back and forth around the ground. Check the cloth for ticks every so often and you'll find the tick "hotspots" and can avoid them. Permethrin-treated clothing is also fantastic for protecting against ticks - it's just highly toxic to water life and cats in liquid form.
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.
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.
I think it is even broader than that. It is removing any potential opposition. That opposition is independent institutions, such as universities, but also the truth itself. If there's no one to research things, then how will you know if something is "true" or not? If there's no one to communicate those findings, how will anyone find out? Etc.
Independent institutions is an oxymoron.
Independent from POTUS is what was meant.
> 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.
> 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).
As someone allergic to doxycycline (was given it as a kid, had a huge rash all over my body), that sounds helpful if I ever need it.
Not allergic myself, but tetracyclines basically turn me into a vampire, the slighest bit of sun exposure burns me to a crisp. Very unpleasant.
"...doxycycline (and other generic antibiotics) wreak havoc on the microbiome, killing beneficial bacteria in the gut and causing troubling side effects..."
Doxycycline is used as prophylaxis for a wide variety of pathogens; either the risk is tolerable with them, or the alarm is needlessly elevated.
https://www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk/advice/malaria/doxycycline
Troubling side effects, from my experience being treated for Lyme with doxy is diarrhea for a while.
I'll fucking take that all day long to get rid of Lyme. It sucks out loud. Every one of my joints was killing me. Even the useless little joints in my pinky toe.
For more info on Lyme and related difficult to identify diseases, NYT columnist Ross Douhat wrote a book about his experience w/ Lyme and his ongoing adaptations. It's called...
The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery
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 research. But make no mistake: cutting off research funding is exactly what is happening. And that has practically nothing to do with antisemitism.
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.
Yet the people that were apoplectic about Facebook voluntarily working with the government to combat covid misinformation are mysteriously silent.
I was listening to an interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky the writer and his theory was conservatives have a love/hate relationship with sciences (and arts and academia). Paraphrasing from memory - if some thing or someone reinforces their belief system they love it, and they despise it when it contradicts them, this effort against science is to get a reality (scientific results) to agree with their preconceived notions. The bonus is suffocating dissent of any kind against those in power. The context was this was about his book about exobiology and authoritarian governments, Alien Clay.
Anti-semitism is just the convenient cover, likewise pro Palestinian protesters are judged to be interfering with USA international relations (wrt Israel) by the Secretary of State under one clause of Immigration and Nationality Act that they use to justify legal immigrants to be kidnapped and deported.
Bypassing the clickbait we have this:
In two new studies led by bacteriologist Brandon L. Jutras, Northwestern scientists have identified an antibiotic that cures Lyme disease at a fraction of the dosage of the current “gold standard” treatment and discovered what may cause a treated infection to mimic chronic illness in patients. The studies were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
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.
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.
I had a tick bite years about with bullseye and didn’t get treated. I’ve had Lyme disease-related symptoms ever since, but and assume from what I’ve read it’s too late to do anything about it. Would this treatment still help or am I still fucked?
It is purely anecdotal but I read a post here years ago about someone that had a 10 year battle with Lyme disease, had gone through rounds of antibiotics and it always came back. He finally heard that maybe long fasts (2 weeks) might help, tried it and his symptoms went away. Just mentioning it because it seems relevant. I always thought should it happen to me, I would give a 2 week fast a try, under a doctor's supervision.
I thought that there are approved human vaccines, but they were voluntarily removed due to economic reasons and lack of adoption.
There was, withdrawn in 2002. Protection wanes so even if you were one of the few who got it then you have no protection today. There are a couple new vaccines in the works, one in phase 3 testing so hopefully we get something in a few years.
Yeah there's what looks like a solid candidate going through a variety of worldwide trials right now.[0]
Very hopeful for a meaningful means of prevention in the coming years.
[0]: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
How is this really different from the previous Lymerix? Aren't they both 3 shot series and OspA based?
It was withdrawn, but the approval was never revoked.
True, and I suppose the patent is expired by now so you could in theory start making it. Though the FDA has rules about how you can produce such things. Probably better for a company to risk/start a new vaccine which they can patent and thus get some benefit that way vs one out of patent. Also just because you can legally make it doesn't mean it is practical. It may require other things that are not longer made, or specific equipment that would be expensive to recreate. Still this is an opportunity for someone in India (where a lot of generic drugs are made already, though the country doesn't matter) if they want to.
I don't hike as much in areas where Lyme is common as I used to, but I'd still take a vaccine if I could. (I didn't know the vaccine existed in 2001 or I would have)
the current FDA has no chance of allowing novel new vaccines to move forward
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.
iirc the vaccines stopped the tick from successfully transferring the bacteria. it didn't make the body able to better combat it. (and if you read the article linked it explains that its not actually the killing of the spirochete that is the problem its the remains of it and how the host body responds to those remains.)
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
Our kid got bit by a tick. Was lucky enough that it had the bulls eye pattern and was able to look it up. She got a crazy high temperature. Was crazy. A strong antibiotic cleared it up.
I really wish there still was a vaccine available (for humans). I treat my pant legs and jacket sleeves with permethrin, which slowly kills the ticks - but does so usually before they would attempt to bite. One of the better camping tricks that I've applied to everyday life.
Duct tape inside out at the top of your socks under your pants does wonders as well. We couldn't find permethrin during COVID, so we did that. It worked mostly. The big bastards didn't get stuck, but they're easy to see. It was the little deer and seed ticks that got stuck. So that's a win.
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
> oxygen therapy.
Like hyperbaric or just with a mask and a tank of o2 ?
Earlier release that links the study: https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2025/04/the-antibiotic... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863980)
Wasn’t there a new Lyme’s vaccine in the works due to come out soon? Anyone aware of how that’s going?
Clinical trials still ongoing.
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
In clinical trials - the one I was able to find has the first report due end of 2026, with the final end of 2027. I assume 6 months or a year after that to do paperwork before approval so I'm guessing late 2028 before we get it (assuming it passes trial, which isn't a given)
The one I heard about is supposed to be an antibody injection.
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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 (undetectable) bacterial infection "chronic lyme" theory.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease
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.
> 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's still a favored theory in many alternative medicine communities. It's also a really contentious topic. There's a long history, including Lyme researchers leaving the field after receiving death threats following publication of research that didn't agree with the alternative medicine theories.
> 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.
To be clear, that article is about CNS penetration of the infection, not persistence of the infection.
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
What symptoms? How can you say your symptoms are from long Lyme, and not something else, or just getting old?
My symptoms are spot on with Acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrodermatitis_chronica_atroph... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK563289/
It is kinda funny that humanity can kills entire species like the dodo while cannot eradicate a bacterium like Borrelia.
Big things are easier to eradicate, especially if they are slow, unaccustomed to being prey, and nutritious.
Eradicating a bacterium with wild animal reservoir populations (deer, white-footed mice, black-legged ticks, all of which are endemic species) is ... a much harder problem.
Strangely enough, there's even some likelihood that killing off the passenger pigeon actually promoted Borrelia burgdorferi. The passenger pigeon's main food source was tree mast. Large flocks of pigeons would descend and clear the forest floor of food. After it went extinct, the population of small animals which also eat tree mast exploded, and these are reservoir species for Borrelia.
A Passenger Pigeon relaunch is planned for 2032:
https://reviverestore.org/projects/about-the-passenger-pigeo...
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.
Make wolves great again
Borellia bergdorfii does not taste like chicken.
There were far fewer dodos than any given bacteria. You can also see a dodo.
Good time to remind people that right next to the town of Lyme CT is Plum Island Animal Disease Center, who happened to be researching tick based disease transmission when Lyme disease was first discovered (named after the town that had the first case). Crazy coincidence.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/07/did-us-invent-lym...
Evidence of bacterium that causes Lyme disease was also found in the 5000+ year old "Iceman" mummy found in the alps. People have described the disease in the 1700s, 1800s and in the 1900s prior to the outbreak in Lyme. Ticks preserved alongside their animal hosts in 1800s biologic samples also are found to have it. Genetic sequencing of different bacteria samples suggests a much older evolutionary tree than a few decades existence.
Bioweapon researchers use existing bacteria and virus to enhance them for weapon usage (I.e. coronavius gain of function research). So the fact that the bacterium previously existed in nature does not disprove that a version engineered to be spread via ticks was released.
Not really. Isn't the best place to open a center that "researches tick based disease transmission" somewhere that's close proximity to a hot-spot for ticks that transmit diseases?
Hmm reminds me of the lab in Wuhan’s that’s doing weapons level bio research, and yet the virus came from a wet market