Hi, I was bitten in April and got on meds within a week of being bitten - doxy then amoxicillin for 2 months and now rocephin from my ID doctor. I have been seeing a regular ID doctor, not a llmd, but the rocephin he has had me on seems to be working. I have 3 days of rocephin left to take. I am really hoping that this will do the trick because I have been on antibiotics almost constantly since I was bitten. I have been symptom free for about 2 weeks. I was wondering how long do relapses take to set in once the antibiotics (in this case rocephin) are discontinued - when will I know if I have this thing beat? Thank you in advance.
Posted by James1979 (Member # 31926) on :
Your case sounds identical to mine. Because it didn't go away "as expected" even though we started treating it early, this shows that we have some kind of a problem which is making it difficult to kill the bacteria.
You really should keep taking abx for 2 months after your symptoms stop. This would be true even for people who didn't have such persistent cases. Otherwise your chance of a relapse goes way up.
Also, I'd guess that the doctor only gave you 200mg a day when you were on doxy. That's too low, and you should've been taking 400mg a day. I'm guessing your amoxi was too low also, you weren't taking it frequently enough, and he didn't prescribe probenecid simultaneously.
You should really find an LLMD ASAP. If you ask me, I think you will relapse quickly after stopping the abx. Everybody's different, so some people might relapse on the first day off abx (like me), but others might go a couple weeks or months before the symptoms come back. Sometimes it can come back many months later.
Have you read Dr B's guidelines? That would help you to understand things a little better.
Posted by lpkayak (Member # 5230) on :
ditto what james said...except i went 15 yrs without tx
the more aggressive you are now the less chance you'll end up like us
Posted by pryopb5 (Member # 33222) on :
right now I am feeling fine, but I went ahead and made an appointment with an llmd just in-case thank you for your help
Posted by erikjh1972 (Member # 20964) on :
i great your feeling fine, but what james says is accurate. you need to take symptom free for 2-3 months, sounds like you have one of those cases, and u dont want to risk it.
Posted by sutherngrl (Member # 16270) on :
Some ppl get well with just a few weeks of treatment if they start treating ASAP after being bitten. This is possible.
My aunt was bitten and started treating within a few days and was well with 3 weeks of antibiotics; no relapse. Others are not so lucky. To be on the safe side I would treat until symptom free for 2 months.