persistant lyme? - Lyme Disease Message Board

0cean · 10-19-2003, 09:48 PM

my husband had lyme disease a few months ago. when the big rash and several
small rashes showed (using online resources) I diagnosed him with Lyme. he
went to the hospital and was prescribed 21 days of amoxicillin. the
hospital never contacted us regarding his positive blood test and staff over the phone told us that he would be contacted if therer were positive results, so he finished
taking the meds but was not seen by another doctor because we have no
insurance and we were under the impression that it was cured and the blood
test showed negative so it probably had not been in his blood too long. he
started having knee pains but no swelling a few weeks ago that have now gone
away. he is also concerned about his memory but he is reading a lot of
dense material for graduate school and we have a large family so it could
also be stress related....

it has been very distressing trying to figure out if these symptoms are lyme or if just us being worried and realting it to lyme rather than the other causes.

we are wondering how likely it is that he needs further treatment, and
whether the spinal tap would be an appropriate test (that is what the
hospital recommended while I was on the phone very upset that no one had
contacted us regarding his positive blood test).

thanks for any opinions
shayna

ticker · 11-05-2003, 10:46 AM

Hi Ocean. Three weeks of treatment is not long enough for Lyme Disease. I believe the minimum treatment time for an infection caught within two weeks of the bite is six weeks. No Lyme test is completely reliable, and most people test negative early in the infection. From what I understand, Lyme rarely shows up in spinal taps.

It is very important for your husband to see a knowledgable doctor and also be tested for the co-infections that ticks can transmit--Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis HME & HGE, and Bartonella. Many people who have Lyme have co-infections.