to treat or not to treat

What about dr j (or someone on a forum )saying children are easier to treat?? Stats on children getting better never to be troubled by it again. (Cured for more than thirty ??years...) would be so valuable.

Being easier to treat and possible lifelong remission for kids who aquired in uterine/ breast.. would be motivation to treat without any symptoms.

And testing and herbals or your choice - would be good insurance that those childhood unknowns ( growing pains, crying about school freak outs about brother playing with toys, itchy rash- wheat sensitivity) were more likely kid issues rather than Lyme or visa versa.

For me I have to gear up for it mentally because it literally makes me sick. More sick. Just to think about it at all. And I know I'm not alone on that... Slowly building strength to tackle this. Thanks for the knowledge and may you and your families heal.

Thanks for everyone's sharing and caring.

...Our children are the future treat them well and they will lead the way...

All you have to do is ask a child that grew up being sick with these infections if they would have rather had treatment earlier, when their symptoms were mild and no big deal.

My bet would be they would answer with a resounding "yes!" - I know I would, having grown up with these infections and being told that it was just bronchitis(every single year, sometimes twice a year?), it was just pink eye (8 times in one year??), it was just random growing pains in my knee (at the age of 17?? - I quit growing at the age of 12!) - that later surgery was done on because of the great amount of pain I was in.

That's how my life has gone - and there are many more examples I could give.

I have not lived through this Lyme experience anywhere near many on this forum. I can only tell you that I asked myself this question and how I answered it for myself.

My kids and I were exposed to Lyme-carrying ticks in August. None of us had a tell-tale Lyme symptoms or were super sick. My father developed a bullseye rash and we had seen the ticks after the bite. I started testing everyone like a mad woman. Myself, I felt fine but I started to feel weird things like my I felt like I had carpal tunnel, my knuckles hurt a bit, I had a headache that came and went, a stiff neck too but could have been from lack of sleep or bad sleeping position. Nothing terrible and I would have never in a million years gone to my doctor for any of symptoms had I not been totally paranoid about Lyme due to my father's bullseye and the known tick exposure. Long story short, I had lyme, so did my husband, and 3 of my kids. My kids never complained about anything lyme like. Some of the kids got sick but then it again they had just started up in school and it was normal childhood illness. My older one complained of headaches and stomach aches but she had complained of those in the past. However, I knew personally that my symptoms were so mild and sporadic that I would not expect my child to complain about them.

I had one child who tested positive but never not once got sick or complained of a headche or pain or any lyme like symptom. I thought she might be that .00001 % whose immune system was strong enough to fight off Lyme on its own. Then about 3-4 months down the road, she developed an extreme and irrational fear of swallowing something, choking and dying. She literally thought things were going to jump in her mouth and constantly feared she had swallowed any misplaced item. Again, if not for my extreme paranoia, I probably would have gone straight to a child therapist and labeled her as an anxious child, but because I had lyme and co-infection in the forefront of my fears, I immediately thought of co-infections.

I did give all my kids 30 days of amoxicillin which is all the pediatric infectious disease doctor would allow. However, every scratch, every temper tantrum, each body ache or pain sent me into a tailspin of doubt and anxiety that one day in 2 years my child would wake up and tell me they couldn't walk or keep their eyes open in school and by then it would be glaringly obvious they had lyme and coinfection but it would be much harder to treat. So I decided to take them to a pediatric Lyme specialist because I was not comfortable relying on the advice of a pediatric infectious disease doctor whose experience with lyme is limited to that read in textbooks and treatment guidelines.

Well, the pediatric LLMD immediately suspected issues with my older due to some physical exam (balance, etc.) and thought that my two middle kids might need further treatment due to behavioral psychiatric manifestations of co-infections. We ran testing and my older child came back with two strains of babesia, mycoplasma, and some autoimmune factors with lyme. My second child came back with babesia as well as relapsing fever (never had a fever!) but can cause psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety. My third child came back with babesia, bartonella and lyme issues. I'm treating them all now with more targeted antibiotics and I will expect to do so for the next few months.

I've already seen an improvement with my second daughter's anxiety and she's been on meds the longest. My older child is having some herx and confirmatory symptoms of her mycoplasma and babesia.

I also saw an lyme specialist for myself and most days I really do feel back to normal.

I don't know....you have to pick your poison, you really do. I can understand why people distrust medicine and doctors after such terrible experiences and antibiotics are not without risks, but honestly I rather go with antibiotics than unchecked bacteria. Most of my kids are little and there is no way I could get the necessary dose of herbs in them on any consistent basis - maybe my 8 year old but my others, no way, no how. I tried to give them a tincture of astralagus and they acted like I had just made them swallow bleach, even the baby!

There are no guarantees and my kid still might wake up in a year and not be able to walk or have unbearable headaches...or maybe she will have gut issues for life, but I take peace in knowing that I did the best I knew how and I did the most I could. I honestly have much more peace with my decisions taking as much control as I could offer things because I very much felt out of control when I was just waiting and waiting and relying on the advice of an inexperienced doctor.