Lyme Disease Treatment: Small Dose, Big Effect
The person suffers the Lyme disease when the bacteria are transmitted into the body, when the host ticks bites. Lyme disease causes symptoms ranging from rash, fever, chills and body aches to joint swelling, weakness and temporary paralysis.
Important thing to be noted is these ticks spreading the disease is the typically about the size of a sesame seed. Basically this disease is most common in rural and suburban area in northeastern and Midwestern states. The disease is also been prognosis in Asia and Australia.
It has been noted that Lyme disease is very much curable, but if not detected in early stage then it may lead to complications like:
Chronic joint inflammation (Lyme arthritis), particularly of the knee
Neurological symptoms, such as facial palsy and neuropathy
Cognitive defects, such as impaired memory
Heart rhythm irregularities
Memory loss
Difficulty concentrating
Changes in mood or sleep habits
Lyme disease rash:
Antibiotics, is available for treating the Lyme disease, which is also the primary treatment for Lyme disease. It is effective and almost all patients recover after antibiotic treatment. Nevertheless, curing may take weeks to months after finishing antibiotic treatment.
However, a point to be noted, people who recover slowly don’t benefit from taking additional antibiotics. Also there is an observance that in about 10 to 15 percent of individuals with early Lyme disease, when there is substances released by the dying bacteria, which cause a brief worsening of symptoms. This is called as Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction. The reaction is noted to occur within 24 hours after starting antibiotics, which may continue for a day or so, and then it also resolves. But if such reaction is happening then Antibiotic therapy should not be stopped, but should instead continue as originally prescribed by the medical practitioner.
Small Doses and Big effects:
Oral antibiotics
Oral antibiotics: the standard treatment for early-stage Lyme disease. The doses include
doxycycline for adults and children older than 8
Amoxicillin or cefuroxime axetil for adults, younger children and pregnant or breast-feeding women
These drugs are effective and clear the infection and also prevent complications.
Recommended course period: 14- to 21-day course of antibiotics
Intravenous antibiotics
this method of treatment is used when the disease has progressed. Effective in eliminating infection, but the disease being progressed it takes time recovering symptomatically.
Recommended course period: Doctor may recommend treatment with an intravenous antibiotic for 14 to 28 days.
Side Effects: lower white blood cell count, gallstones and mild to severe diarrhea.
Pain-relieving medicines: For reducing the pain caused by the rashes. Also swollen joints can be reduced by the doctor removing fluid from them. They use the procedure of arthrocentesis which is a procedure whereby fluid is removed from a joint using a needle and syringe under sterile conditions. The doctor also can use oral medications such as ibuprofen (Motrin, Nuprin) to reduce inflammation and reduce pain.
Warning: Avoid bismacine
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given warnings to consumers and health care providers to avoid bismacine.
Bismacine, also known as chromacine, is an injectable compound, which has been prescribed by some alternative medicine practitioners to treat Lyme disease. Bismacine contains high levels of the metal bismuth, can cause bismuth poisoning, which can lead to heart and kidney failure. Though bismuth is safely used in some oral medications for stomach ulcers, but it’s not approved for use in injectable form or even in oral form as a treatment for Lyme disease.
There is more likeliness to get Lyme disease if you live or spend time in the grassy and heavily wooded areas where ticks carrying the disease breed. Therefore it’s important to take common precautions in areas where Lyme disease seems to be prevalent. Treatment with appropriate antibiotics in the early stages of the disease will most likely, the individual will recover completely.
