Antibiotic question

Clifs note version: bit July 3 or 4. Found tick July 5. Symptoms/bulls eye July 14. Four weeks of Doxcy began July 16. Finished Doxcy August 12. By Sunday August 14 felt fatigued and had minor pain wrist/hands/ankles (like an arthritis feeling). Infectious Disease/Lyme Doc. said this is normal that the anti-inflmmatory in the Doxcy. isn't in my body so I have some pain and I'm tired from all the meds. He wouldn't give me anymore meds. (I hate taking medicine but this board told me six weeks minimum). I had an extra five days stored (he had given me extra in case I found a tick on me in the future he said to take immediately). Anyway, after the Saturday/Sunday break I am on Doxcy from Monday-Friday (I won't have anymore after that). I have an appt. with a Lyme specialist (Dr. R in Manhattan) Wed, August 24th.

Question: Is it bad to be without antibiotic in my system from August 20-24? Can bacteria move rapidly or get worse? I went from hating antibiotics to becoming nervous being without them.

Sorry - becoming Lyme-crazy.

Thanks.

I just wanted to pop in and agree with Cd on this! Hang in there, can congrats on getting into a LLMD quickly!!

Huddie said...
One Lyme-paranoia question: If it's six weeks to replicate and I stop at four am right in the middle of a possible big replication?

There's no way of answering this, Huddie, because no one knows the "age" of the bacteria that infected you.

That's why the recommendation is to treat for 4-6 wks (preferably 6 and 8 to play things really safe)....and also to treat 4-8 wks. after complete resolution of symptoms.

You know we're happy to help ;)

And, I'm glad you saved all the herb information. The amount of information required for successful treatment is absolutely insane. Only we live in our bodies so it's up to us to determine what we want to put into them.

Knowledge is power.

Let's try it this way....

When you are infected, it's not like all of the bacteria are necessarily in the same exact place within their reproduction cycle.

Some might be ready to reproduce, some might be a few days from being ready to reproduce and some might take that full 4-6 wks. before they are ready to reproduce.

It's almost looking at it as if you're infected with a neighborhood's worth of bacteria. Some are kids and not reproducing yet but can do so in 4-6 wks......some are teenagers that will be able to reproduce in 2-3 wks.....and some are adults already reproducing.

This is NOT necessarily how things go but my attempt at explaining that we just don't know what's going on inside our bodies and that's why ILADS recommends treating for 4-6 wks. (to "cover" those "kids" who won't be able to reproduce for 4-6 wks.)

Hope this helps.

I don't know anyone who likes this disease ;)

CD and Trav,

Thank you.

CD, your analogy is in perfect layman terms that make sense to me now. I am going to see if my internist will call in more Doxcy. so I can be covered for one more week, making it six weeks. We know there is no reasoning with teenagers!

Thanks!

do you have symptoms today?

Treatment of 4-6 weeks is if you don't have symptoms.

If you do have symptoms...or develop them while treating...then you need to treat to symptom free PLUS 4-8 weeks after.

You have an upcoming appt. with a LLMD - so hang on...if you can get some abx to get you to the appt. that would be great...