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Comment by methyl | Hacker News Reader

what were your symptoms?

First year:

Very covid-like symptoms, to the point where I initially did a quick home covid test (or multiple tests if I remember) that was negative. Very distinct soreness around the crease of the hip/leg joint, probably a lymph gland.

Second year: exact same symptoms but less intense, still started antibiotics immediately

third: again same but less intense, I ignored it until general full-body joint pain occurred then immediately went on antibiotics, after a few months of that it started to clear up.

Glad that your lyme was temporary

Lyme disease and bacteria are always temporary. The long term disease/syndrome many people attribute to it is something else similar to long COVID and still debated.

This is the one area where the CDC actually does have accurate advice, Lyme is excellent at hiding itself from your immune system and tends to burrow into joint tissue where antibiotics have difficulty reaching. DON'T assume the disease is temporary, as the bacteria is well-known to cause lasting nerve damage even after it dies off completely. I have more than one friend who wasn't as lucky as me and still suffers with symptoms to this day.

Having done the research myself, it seems to be biofilms that the bacteria create leading to a "dormant" yet still metabolically active state that releases inflammatory byproducts throughout the body.

The recommended course of action seems to be disulfiram to bust those biofilms + antibiotics to finally kill it all off.

In my understanding (from some years back when I was researching this myself), Lyme takes multiple forms, and in some phase in their life cycle are able to hide inside red blood cells. Antibiotics work only for some of the forms.

Lyme Disease has existed for a very long time, it is always treatable by antibiotics and can be tested by tests. Antibiotics work.

Some researchers think that the difficulty in healing Lyme disease is related to the fact that Lyme changes form and antibiotics only target some of the forms. In some countries, doctors are forbidden to make long-term prescription for antibiotics based on the idea that chronic Lyme does not exist.

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