Prescribing prolonged courses of antibiotics for patients experiencing symptoms attributed to Lyme disease can lead to harmful health outcomes, says a new position paper by Canada’s infectious disease experts.
The statement says Lyme causing Borrelia are reliably killed with recommended doses of antibiotics. However, says Dr. Todd Hatchette, President of AMMI Canada, for patients with persistent symptoms, more antibiotics are not the answer.
“Patients being told they have chronic infection are often given prolonged antibiotics and alternative therapies that have never been shown to work and have, in fact, been harmful.”
Well-designed studies have established that long-term antibiotic treatment is of no more benefit to the patient than a placebo and has caused significant adverse effects in more than one quarter of participants, including: C. difficile, and infections arising from intravenous catheters.
AMMI Canada has released its position paper in an attempt to provide accurate information for patients and health care providers on the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease.
“Patients are suffering from very real and sometimes debilitating symptoms,” adds Dr. Hatchette. “Unfortunately, there has been a lot of misinformation about Lyme disease. Patients want and deserve honest answers. As Canada’s experts in infectious diseases, we have an obligation to provide answers.”
Dr. Hatchette acknowledges the need to gather more evidence about the disease.
“AMMI Canada recognizes there are gaps in knowledge about Lyme disease and we support the call for further research to better define one, the cause of these persistent symptoms, and two, effective management strategies,” adds Dr. Hatchette.
There are no studies that have used combination antibiotics for an extended time period of years instead of months. I can tell you personally that extended antibiotic treatment works. It took 3 years before I had significant relief from symptoms.
Zhang and Aucott at Johns Hopkins have proven the persistence of borrelia and difficulty with eradicating it. To stop treatment with antibiotics for fear of harmful consequences ignores the reality that borreliosis is a dangerous illness with damage to the heart and CNS.
What do you recommend for treatment? You said long term antibiotics don’t work ? Then what does? As a long term Lyme
Sufferer I feel like no one knows what to do. The nay sayers versus the yay sayers . We want an answer!!
I again do not know why a group of doctors who hardly ever treat or recognize Lyme Disease in Canada are being quoted about it. I also don’t know why a group of Canadian Infectious Disease doctors get quoted at all while following 1970’s guidelines for treatment (2 weeks of Doxycycline) and US ones to boot. Meanwhile, the Canadian government has listed both the ISDA (2 weeks of Doxycycline and no further treatment) and ILADS guidelines (treat the patient until they are well) for Canadian Health Professionals. How many more Canadians will lose their shelter, jobs, family and friends while ID doctors give out such sage advice as ‘exercise’ and ‘change your diet’ and ‘maybe somatic as in imagining they are ill’. Please stop quoting these people.
I was diagnosed in July 2012. I did not have any rash that I know of. I was bit by a tick when I was on vacation in Gettysburg, PA. I became very lethargic and my joints, especially my neck was hurting, some flu-like symptoms. My doctor checked EBV, Mono and Lymes. Lymes was positive. Tried 21-days of Doxy. Felt a little better, but then the bottom dropped out. Retested by PCR and positive. I was on 30-days of IV Rocephin. I felt better, but still had bad days, so I decided to start on a Natural Lyme Formula treatment protocol from Organic Herbal Clinic (ww w. organicherbalclinic. com), the treatment effectively treated my Lyme disease condition. The stiffness, fatigue and joint/muscle/body pains has subsided, I feel better overall than i have felt in years. 3 months after the treatment, I made an appointment with a rheumatologist in Houston, after examining me, she looked at me and told me I did not have Lyme disease because all the usual Lyme symptoms had stopped. Its almost like a miracle!