Hi Jacob!
Welcome! I'm so glad you chose to join our community!!
Unfortunately, as you have seen with your symptoms, 200 mgs of Doxy a day isn't enough to help you actually recover, only to feel better while on it. That's because at that dose, it's only able to stop the bacteria from replicating (bacteriostatic) instead of killing the bacteria (bactericidal).
It's not at all uncommon for current testing to all come back interpreted as negative with these infections. The testing isn't very good and the bacteria are highly effective at moving out of the blood stream very quickly - so a blood test looking for the bacteria doesn't work well usually unless it's timed just right to catch the bacteria when it's in the blood to replicate.
Unfortunately, no one knows - nor can it be accurately predicted- how long it will take for someone to heal, or to have improvements because this is such a complex illness. You were very recently infected, so your case shouldn't be too complex.
If you haven't yet, it would be helpful for you to start with reading through the thread at the top of the forum titled,"New to Lyme?...Start here!!", as it is packed full of important information, symptom lists, helpful links and pdf's, how to detox when one has these infections, information on probiotics and much more.
You will need to see a Lyme disease specialist, known as a LLMD (Lyme Literate Medical Doctor) that has been trained by ILADS (International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society), as ID Docs (Infectious Disease Doctors) believe Lyme is hard to catch and easy to treat, and don't believe in the reality of chronic Lyme.
For help in finding an ILADS trained LLMD in your area, you will need to enable your email option in your profile in order to receive any recommendations, as we don't allow doctor's names and contact info to be posted on the forum for several reasons. You can enable your email option in your profile, under 'edit profile'. Be sure to click the submit button to actually save your preference.
You can send me an email by clicking on my screen name or the small blue envelope under my screen name. I may have contact information for some LLMD's in your area as well. Please include your state and area that you would like to find a LLMD in and I will see how close I can get to your
location.
You can start a new thread titled something like "Looking for LLMD in the
(insert the nearest larger city & state) area". Members can email you about
the LLMD's that they see in that area if you have your email enabled. We don't allow doctors names to be posted though.
You can also email the Tick-Borne Disease Alliance at
[url]
[email protected] for LLMD referrals and you can go to
tbdalliance.org to learn more about
these infections.
You can also go to The Lyme Disease Association and search for LLMD's 3 times in a month. You have to register first. Here is the link:
www.lymediseaseassociation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=277&Itemid=74
ILADS has their own referral system as well:
ilads.org/ilads_media/physician-referral/ You can go to the ILADS site to read the new (2014) Treatment guidelines to get you started on your healing journey:
www.ilads.org/lyme/treatment-guideline.php