Help me kill my (relatively) Early Lyme PLEASE!!!

Hi all, this is a very frustrating disease and I wish you all perfect health and a cure soon!!!!

I was bitten by a tick around Apr 13, and removed it as soon as I saw it on my side. After some googling, I read that I should get prophylatic Doxycycline for 10 days, so I went to quick care and got 100mg 2x per day and began on Apr 15. I took it pretty much for the full length but felt what I could only describe as "pressure in my head", not really a migraine or sharp stabbing pain, just like pressure on the top of the head as well as palpitations.

So I went to see an infectious disease doc on Apr 25 and she changed my prescription to Ceftin. This got rid of the headache, and I had knee and elbow pain (and a bit of muscle pain in my arms) that seemed to get worse, then better as the weeks went on. By the end I was close to 100%. My prescription ended on May 14th-ish.

Over the next few days, the joint pain came back and the spacey head pressure. Now I'm falling asleep around 1-2am and waking up at 7am. This is really strange for me, as I've always been a late riser, waking up around 10am. I have always gone to sleep late. Of course my family just assumes its the stressing over lyme.

So I'm going to call the Doctor tomorrow asap and request more antibiotics. I am wondering if I should go for Doxy and up the dose, since clinically this has worked well, but after talking with Dr. Sapi, she said the best method was Doxy + Tinidazole (but this might just be in vitro!) to get rid of the cysts as well.

My local doctor is not an LLMD and the earliest I can get in to see one is 2 months! So, my doctor is listening to me, but I live in FL, not an endemic area and she doesn't really know how to treat.

BTW, I took the Lyme test from Quest and it was negative (no big shock). I have not had any of the co-infections screened at the labs mentioned by the experts here. But, I did get better on the antibiotic, so should I just get back on the Ceftin, ask for Doxy instead and double the dosage, ask for Doxy + Tinidazole, or what? Also, if I do go on the Tinidazole, I read that it can null the effects of the doxy, so do you normally take the doxy for a few weeks, then clear up the cysts with tinidazole?

Please everyone, you're my only hope and its already quite debilitating even at this stage. I don't want it any worse!!

Also, I'd take the igenex tests, but they say you should not be on antibiotics for at least a few weeks before the test. I don't think that's an option at this point. Maybe after my next round.

Hi MrVapor,

Well done for jumping on this so quickly and doing your homework!

You are going to need an LLMD to figure this one out. They will treat you beyond the cessation of symptoms to ensure that it doesn't come back. I'm not sure it matters what you take until you see the doctor, just so it is more than 100mg of doxy! If the ceftin keeps you well, use that. I'm sorry I am not familiar with Tindazole, perhaps someone else can jump in here.

Check out our "New to Lyme?" thread for instructions on detoxing. It can really be a great supportive therapy.

Wishing you well.

Hi there - I'm sorry to hear you have to deal with this, but I'm glad you're being so proactive about it! I didn't start treating my lyme until 15 years in, so the way antibiotics work for me might be different than for you. I've tried a lot of combinations of abx over the last year, I think the best of which was doxy, ceftin, and tindamax - that way you're targetting all 3 forms of the bacteria at once. Remember though, the more abx you're on, the more probiotics you need! I've lost track of how many billion I have to take to keep my gut functioning well!

You might also want to consider adding herbs to help the process. Astralagus is pretty good for lyme (just not in its chronic form). Things like cat's claw/samento are also great to boost the CD-57 - natural killer cells against the lyme. Have you had your CD57 levels checked? That's usually a good thing to know along the way with lyme.

Best of luck!

Hi there,

I have been taking 200mg Doxy plus 500mg Tinidazole twice a day for the past ~6months. This combo has been great for me, and it seems to be a common combo. I haven't heard about any reasons to not take them togehter...

Kirsty

Hmmm... My actual list of meds is approx:

- 1 month 200mg Doxy per day
- 7 months 400mg Doxy per day
- 2 months other meds (to avoid sun sensitivity over the summer but they didn't work and I can't rememeber the names)
- 6 months on the current regime

So, in total 16 months of treatment so far (2 months to go). But, I seem to have had lyme for about 5-8 years, you will need much less. I take Doxy and Tinidazole consistantly. I did have a look at Samento, but don't think this is safe for my liver in addition to the other two drugs.

Tinidazole is linked with some cancers, but this appears to be a very low risk. The benefits of a life without lyme make it very worwhile risking for me. I'm not taking curcumin as I don't feel there is enough info available as to its safety and efficiency - I don't know if it will interact with other drugs.

In theory you should treat for two months after symtoms have ended, but in practise that is hard to work out. For example, tinidazole can cause numbness and nerve pain in limbs, so it can be hard to work out what is lyme and what is side-effects. This is why I ended up stopping a bit too early, and needing another three months of treatment. I was changed from just Doxy to Tinidazole in addition because my shoulder/neck pain apparently suggests cyst formation. Gives me headaches sometimes, but never as bad as the migraine-like pain I got with lyme.

Good luck,

Kirsty