Tick test kit

I’m just saying in general, that there are people out there that tell people they have some disease, and then sell them a cure.  Like snake oil salesmen from way back.

Or people that sell supplements today, although there are some cases where supplements are beneficial.

Or people that advocate not eating gluten, although there are some people that don’t tolerate gluten.

Like I said, if you treat it promptly maybe you don’t have to worry about it

Did you take antibiotic?  How soon after being bitten?  Did it cure you?

I wonder if one gets immunity after you’ve been infected once or is that just for viruses…

I have been on 3 rounds of antibiotics for 3 months each. Last time I got tested it came back negative. I think by the time we found out I had it, it had been quite a while, months if not longer…. I am feeling better now. I will get tested again in two months or so and then again in a year or so.

I have had a good three  dozen ticks embedded in me over the last 10  years and I have picked off hundreds before they got in. I am now allergic to their “saliva” so I know I have one in me within 15 minutes or so. The more I get in me in a row the quicker and more extreme the reaction. After a few months of not having one I don’t react as badly.

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/treatment/prolonged/index.html

The NIH funded four placebo controlled studies of several hundred people total that had symptoms persist after normal Lyme treatment with antibiotics

There were no long term difference in outcome between prolonged antibiotics and placebo.  There were some complications from the prolonged antibiotic.  There was a small short term improvement in the prolonged antibiotics group

You can’t really tell from an individual case if prolonged antibiotics worked, they may have gotten better regardless

I think what’s clear is that you want to treat it soon after infection and avoid all this

Did you test positive for the Lyme bacteria after the standard antibiotic treatment?

I think I would probably do the prolonged antibiotic if I tested positive after standard treatment regardless of the NIH test results.

Came across this today:

Antibiotic gel prevents borreliosis resulting from tick bites

An antibiotic gel based on azithromycin, an antibiotic with antibacterial properties, helps to prevent the onset of Lyme borreliosis following a tick bite. That is the finding of a multi-centre international study, in which MedUni Vienna’s Department of Clinical Pharmacology played an important part. The study has now been published in the world-leading journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Read more:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161220093939.htm

“A total of 1,000 patients with fresh tick bites were treated with the antibiotic gel within 72 hours of being bitten. Says Jilma: “None of the test subjects went on to develop Lyme borreliosis.” Conversely, in the control group that received a placebo, there were seven cases of borreliosis.”

wow!  That would be really good.  I hate taking antibiotics because it screws up the bacteria in my body, but the gel would avoid that.

You still have to catch it within 72 hours.  I wonder what the shelf life would be

A 2013 study used azithromycin cream on mice exposed to Borrelia burgdorferi, with similarly fantastic results:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3910720/

For that study, the researchers had a pharmacy prepare the gel to order

I suspect that if the “verification study” referred to in the Lancet study goes well, new products will appear in Europe, and maybe in America, some day.

Until then, if you experience frequent tick bites, you might want to refer the Lancet article to your doctor and discuss options:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(16)30529-1/fulltext

— Rex

And maybe I should carefully read journal articles instead of just posting links.

In case someone stumbles across this thread in the future, further discussion of azithromycin gel/cream moved here:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/antibiotic-gel-prevents-borreliosis-resulting-from-tick-bites/#post-3466720

— Rex