My 4 year old son has been taking antibiotics for a little over 7 months. He wasn't really sick when he started treatment. We just had a few concerns and a positive test so we wanted to be proactive about it.
I have a phone consult with his doctor tomorrow. I don't really know what to discuss since I don't really think he has any problems. He does still have a speech delay but it's getting better and better (he is in therapy for it).
Other than that he seems like a normal kid. He sleeps well, never seems overly tired, eats good, doesn't seems like he hurts or anything... I don't know. It's hard to tell with a 4 year old. I'm scared to stop. I figure we'll probably do at least a few more months.
With a child how long does treatment usually take? Is it possible to get all the way better? I'm scared that he is always going to have this.
Thanks for reading this. Any opinions or advice is welcomed!
Posted by jkmom (Member # 14004) on :
I would ask the LLMD what he looks for in children before he stops treating.
Since he is doing speech therapy, you can't really tell how much of his speech improvement is from his Lyme treatment and not the therapy.
What were your concerns that led you to treat? How have they changed?
If you stop the treatment, just watch for things to get worse or new symptoms.
I think that is all you can do.
Posted by LaurenTurner (Member # 12320) on :
He didn't really display many symptoms. Mostly just the speech delay. Also his ears would sometimes turn red. I read that that was a symptom. They haven't done that since treatment. And one time when he was on anbiotics (before we knew about Lyme) he had a weird reaction to it (which later we figured was probably a herx).
Other than that he really didn't have any symptoms. I just wanted to nip and in the bud before it got bad.
Thanks for your response. :-)
Posted by Shosty (Member # 12232) on :
I know this is controversial, but I wouldn't have a 4 year-old who is not ill, on antibiotics for any longer. Sometimes people can test positive, but their immune system has handled the infection, at least for a good long time. I also don't believe it is possible to get every last bug.
The speech delay may not even be related to Lyme, and it is getting better with therapy, so see if continued therapy without meds, continues that progress.
I don't know if this is helpful, but one of our daughters had a very positive test, and some minor symptoms (such as a feeling that she had something in her eye all the time, one episode of swelling in her elbow, that's about it). She seemed fine after one month of amoxicillin, but when we stopped the abx, the eye thing returned in a week. She did 3 more months of tetracycline (your son is too young for this of course), and she has been fine for 9 years now. Virtually never sick, in fact. She's 17 now.
I really don't know if any of us- or anyone for that matter- can ever achieve a perfect feeling of safety with this.
You also need to balance out the harm done by abx, especially to the gut. Other members of our family, including me, did longer periods on abx and have had some long-term problems from them.
If your son is not sick, stop the meds. If he gets sick or even has a problem that is seemingly minor but bothers him a lot (my youngest just was driven crazy by that feeling in her eye), then he can do meds again.