
Visiting physician sheds new light on Lyme disease - kungfudoi
http://www.mvtimes.com/2016/07/13/visiting-physician-sheds-new-light-lyme-disease/
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caycep
It would be exciting...except the red flag for me:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Zubcevik%2C+Nevena%...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Zubcevik%2C+Nevena%5Bau%5D)

A hotshot Harvard Medical School infectious disease physician should at least
have a more prominent publication record. If there is evidence that actually
backs this up, great. Publish it under peer review.

There is a shady industry in chronic antibiotics for "chronic lyme" which is a
collection of vague symptoms, which fly in the face of antibiotic therapy, and
for which the "recommended" testing rejects the official CDC testing and can
only be provided by cash-only "proprietary" laboratories. The physicians who
do this, all conveniently happen to be cash only...

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riahi
It's not __that __ridiculous. She has only been an attending physician for 2
years, having graduated from Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency in
2014.

However, she is not an infectious disease physician by training, which is
important to keep in mind, depending on how you look at things. PM&R does work
with spinal cord and traumatic cerebral injury, which is why she argues that
chronic lyme is similar. However, PM&R is not typically the specialty running
point on antimicrobial therapy planning.

~~~
caycep
Still - most people who are going into a field of research (and who have a
mentor on top of things) should have at least a poster at a major convention
of the society of their field, a case report, or something, by the end of
residency. A completely blank pubmed record is not unusual, but unsettling for
someone making these kinds of claims.

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susan_hall
There are certain bacteria that are known to require many years of antibiotics
to resolve:

1.) tuberculosis

2.) Leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae)

For both of these it is normal to take antibiotics for many, many years.

Also, less seriously, ordinary acne is often treated with antibiotics for
years. My sister took antibiotics for 5 years to deal with her acne.

It is possible that there is a tick borne bacteria that also falls into this
category. Some of the stories of long-term Lyme would suggest this.

The 2 days of antibiotics for "prophylactic" protection makes sense only if
the goal is to create antibiotic-resistant bacteria. 2 days of a relatively
weak antibiotics is pure anti-science. She makes a good point here:

"She also said the two-day course of doxycycline, often prescribed for people
who find a tick embedded on their body, has little or no prophylactic value."

~~~
jrs235
Wow! Only two days? I've been diagnosed and treated for Lyme's twice. Both
times it was ten days of doxycycline.

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percept
Important:

“Sudden-onset dementia should really be a red flag for Lyme [disease],
especially in people with compromised immune systems,” she said.

“Everyone over 50 has a compromised immune system.”

Dr. Zubcevik said that doctors and parents should know that Lyme presents
differently in children than it does in adults. “71 percent of the time,
headache is the most common symptom in children,” she said. “Mood disturbance,
fatigue, and irritability are also frequent symptoms in children. If they are
acting out in school all of a sudden, get them tested.”

“The bull’s-eye rash only happens 20 percent of the time,” she said. “It can
often look like a spider bite or a bruise. If you get a bull’s-eye it’s like
winning the lottery. Borrelia miyamotoi, which we have a lot in Massachusetts,
will not test positive on either test. That’s a huge problem, so the CDC is
moving toward a different kind of test.”

Crazy:

"Dr. Zubcevik said there are videos that show a white blood cell pursuing a
spirochete, which evades capture by drilling into tissue."

