OT
Some people probably do get cured with a few weeks antibiotics, but just as many think they are cured and that other symptoms that crop up months or years later are unrelated.
"Some people probably"? That isn't at all what the Newsweek article you think should be "convincing" says. It says,
It's possible that some patients remain chronically infected, while others suffer from persistent inflammation after the infection itself is gone... Most people with advanced, neurological Lyme disease get better after four weeks of intravenous antibiotics, but some 40 percent either fail that regimen or relapse after responding to it.
Note that the "most people" getting better reference is for people with "advanced, neurological Lyme disease."
And WAY most people who catch it early in the process get cured by the course of antibiotics. You knew within days, didn't you?
Everyone on my road has had it more than once and all were completely cured with a month of antibiotics. With one exception: a teenager who had it but didn't catch it got very very sick (it wasn't diagnosed until he had neurological sx) -- it can be, if not caught early and treated with antibiotics, a devastating disease -- but was cured by several months of IV antibiotics administered by his mother, a doctor.
I appreciate your concern about my headaches, but I must say that your conclusion that "it is likely" that I still have Lyme and that it is causing my headaches is surprising for a writer who specializes in part in science.
My headaches began years ago, three days after I took one month of The Pill. The first migraine lasted for 5 years, 24/7. Over the years, they've improved vastly. In the last couple of years, post-Lyme, I have had many fewer headaches. Mostly, I know what has triggered one. There is no connection, therefore, with my Lyme disease; if one is stipulated, I will have to thank Lyme for an improvement!
My husband has never been sick with anything but a few colds, the flu, and Lyme handily cured by antibiotics. That's it.
I wish you had taken the antibiotics as soon as you realized that you had Lyme disease, Jill. If I remember correctly, you didn't. I don't remember why. I wish that when you passed the large TO LYME sign a couple of exit signs from your Connecticut destination it had occurred to you that Lyme ticks were in the neighborhood, in fact were named for it, and, knowing you wouldn't be taking antibiotics if infected, had turned back. IMO, you should go no place where there are Lyme ticks, even with precautions like repellent spray, jeans tucked into socks, frequent examination of your body and frequent showers.
I feel very sorry for you and others who for some reason can't or choose not to take antibiotics, or who don't realized that that awful illness they're experiencing is Lyme, and should be appropriately treated.
I also know a man who didn't get treated until he had serious neurological symptoms. It ruined his life for several years. Fortunately, he's well now.
I'm happy for you that you are well now, too, Jill. |
