I have had a question tickling my brain for a while now. I have read so much info over the last 1 1/2 years, but still cant figure this out. If you remain on antibiotics continually, can you eventually kill all the Lyme bacteria?
I thought I remembered that they could only live 2 1/2 years or so. Not sure if this applies to all the forms such as cysts, though. Is this a Lyme induced delusion?
This is important to me as I have not been able to treat for the cyst form due to drug reactions. Thanks for any help you can give. Cindy
Posted by geniveve (Member # 8646) on :
i'm glad you asked this. i got bit in jun 05, had one week of biaxin in december. started amoxy in february for 3 months, then doctor pulled it.
now i have started ceftin last week and am curious to see how long i can be on it. she only wrote the prescription for 2 months.
so far after 1 week no herx or anything.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
Never heard of the "2 1/2 yrs" thing. I took abx for 4 yrs straight. Got bit again. Abx for a few more months, then off again. I've been completely off for one full year now.
You will get well....never doubt and never fear.
Posted by timaca (Member # 6911) on :
Seeing as I had "latent" lyme bacteria hanging out in my body for 10 years....and was perfectly healthy until I got a steroid shot to my knee....
Unless you can treat the cyst form of the bacteria, or try a pulse of antibiotics to try to get the cyst to grow, you can be treating for a long, long time....
Timaca
Posted by liz28 (Member # 4946) on :
For me, it was five months on rifampin/ketek for bartonella, and two and a half months on chloroquine/primaquine for babesia. Please note the chloroquine is taken three days on, one week off, and the primaquine is taken four days on, two days off, after having had a G6PD deficiency test at Quest Labs.
It's hard to tell yet whether the Lyme is gone, as I was disabled over five years and am going through a godawful cleanup phase. But after about five months on ketek/omnicef, I became symptom free and have remained so, despite being on maintenance abx.