It's a rickettsial disease, and highly infective. Actually, ticks carry it but there seems to be no discussion of tick transmission to humans anywhere.
Anyway, acute infection is treated with 10-14 days of antibiotics, and is very effective (or so they say).
Chronic infection is treated for 2-4 years with antibiotics.
I'd like to know *why* that is but I assume that the organism adapts to the host and after a certain alteration/adaptation, or perhaps also adds in a dormant/spore form, it is not easily treated.
Probably the same with lyme.
Posted by tailz (Member # 10014) on :
Dr. S wouldn't even test me for this one. He said it's been negative, so I don't have it. He must be God to know what bugs I have and don't have without even a sample of my blood in a tube.
Posted by oxygenbabe (Member # 5831) on :
No, I didn't mean that. I mean Wormser & NEJM. Be a little bit smart. Use as a model other infectious organisms that are easily treated in the acute stage and require years of abx in the chronic stage. This would track with evidence based medicine.
Posted by Polaris (Member # 11391) on :
I have been diagnosed with Q Fever through the semi-LLMD I saw in the Detroit area. He tested me through Quest Diagnostics Labs. I tested Positive on both PhaseI and Phase II IGG screens. That combined with my LabCorp CD57 of 26 prompted him to want to start me on IV Doxycycline right away, for Lyme and Q Fever.
Funny thing is, he all but ignored my Igenex Western Blots when I showed him, saying they get too many positives. That is complete BS because they are a national reference lab with complete certification, and their controls in being certified were fine.
Igenex IGG IND39, IND41 Igenex IGM +30, ++31, IND41, +58
Posted by Greatcod (Member # 7002) on :
"This would track with evidence based medicine."
This evidence based medicine stuff borders on madness. Their response would be that blood tests and PCR show no evidence of continuing infection. The symptoms that patients continue to report--fatigue, pain, etc, are subjective, and don't justify further treatment. The so-called subjective symptoms are those reported by patients that medicine hasn't figured out how to test for (they never admit that). Evidence based sympmtoms are either observable to the doctor, or can be tested for. What it comes down to is that what the patient feels and says doesn't matter anymore unless there is a test for it. EBM is the reason that flu like symptoms are still not part of the IDSA intial diagnosis protocol. Only the rash, Bell's Palsy and swollen knees count.
Posted by CaliforniaLyme (Member # 7136) on :
They also use antibiotics for 2-3 YEARS at a time in cystic fibrosis.
Posted by Marnie (Member # 773) on :
OR use HSV-1 as a model?
Yes...the cold sore virus ! which is believed by many researchers to be the trigger of MS.
Both the lyme bacteria and the herpes simplex virus evade our immune system detection via the same antigen.