Just diagnosed with Lyme Disease

Hello Everyone,
I'm new here and just had a few questions, if someone could answer them I would greatly appreciate it, as I've been going out of my mind. I was diagnosed with Lyme on 4/13/17 (no test just my doctors diagnoses, I live in the Northeast) and put on a treatment of 100mg Doxy twice a day. So my questions are:

1. I started feeling ill 9/5/16 and I've been feeling progressively worse since, is the treatment I'm on sufficient for the eight months I've had symptoms? (muscle aches, headaches, joint pain, fatigue)

2. I've felt worse since starting the Doxy is this normal?

3. Am I considered chronic since it took so long for treatment?

Thanks in advance,
-jd

oops, forgot- I felt worse after the first couple days of the Doxy from herxing, but I am feeling better now, but I started an herbal protocol shortly after the Doxy when I found out it wasn't going to be enough.

Welcome! I would seek out an LLMD (Lyme Literate Medical Doctor). Just a relatively low dose of Doxy isn't going to cut it.

If you haven't already, I would read the "New to Lyme" thread pinned at the top of the board. Lots of great information.

You can also start a new thread titled Looking for LLMD in City, State. Enable your email, and folks will send you names of good docs.

jdean13 said...
Hello Everyone,
I'm new here and just had a few questions, if someone could answer them I would greatly appreciate it, as I've been going out of my mind. I was diagnosed with Lyme on 4/13/17 (no test just my doctors diagnoses, I live in the Northeast) and put on a treatment of 100mg Doxy twice a day. So my questions are:

1. I started feeling ill 9/5/16 and I've been feeling progressively worse since, is the treatment I'm on sufficient for the eight months I've had symptoms? (muscle aches, headaches, joint pain, fatigue)

2. I've felt worse since starting the Doxy is this normal?

3. Am I considered chronic since it took so long for treatment?

Thanks in advance,
-jd

Hi jdean - welcome to our community!

Sorry you have Lyme disease...but glad you found us here. This is a great place - lots of knowledge and support here.

1. No, that isn't sufficient treatment. It's fine to start out with a lower dose of doxy...but you really should be increasing that dose to 200 mg twice daily..
Also, mono therapy is not recommended. LLMD's will prescribe one or more antibiotics to go with the first one.
You will most likely have one or more co-infections...two big ones are :Bartonella and Babesia. They will need different medications to treat them.

2. Yes, it's normal to feel worse when treating. This is because the die-off of the bacteria creates toxins...resulting in inflammation - and an increase in symptoms PLUS new symptoms can occur.

3. Yes, you're considered chronic.

To help with the increase in symptoms from treatment (herxing) - effective detoxing can help alleviate that.

Here is a link to a site with good detoxing ideas.

www.tiredoflyme.com/detox-methods.html

Start off by making sure you drink minimum 8 glasses of water daily.
You can squeeze fresh lemon juice into some glasses.
Take something to support your liver function - eg. Milk Thistle Extract.

Take probiotics daily...to replenish the good bacteria in your gut that the antibiotics are killing.

So do all of the above...then every few days you can add in another detox idea...until you are doing multiple methods daily.

Hi Jdean!
Welcome to our community! I'm so glad you found us.

Everyone has provided you with good information so far, so I just stopped by to say Hi!

Let us know what questions you have!