Hi all,
This a great article from our friends at Infectioncontrolltoday.com. This is the kind of research that is needed for us as Lyme sufferers. I am again on long term intravenous antibiotic therapy. My insurance company is trying to deny the payment of this treatment. I am appealing their decission, of course. Meanwhile, many of you know how effective intravenous antibiotic treatment can be for more than 30 days. If any of you have any experience with this treatment, I hope you would comment and let me know how you are doing. Your experience might be extremely helpful for those of us who are being treated or contemplating this kind of treatment. I started with two grams of Rocephin once a day, for 30 days. Now, I am doing one gram once a day and this has been going on for two months now. I have certainly been "herxing" and I have had some tough days,feeling really bad. However, I am feeling stronger in many ways and I feel as if I am getting a little better every day. I am being helped by my neurologist, who has had some experience with Lyme disease. I can't tell you great he has been to me. He is seriously trying to make me feel better. I have been plagued with this disease since 2001 and I have undergone many types of treatment. The only times I have really felt better is when I have intravenous antibiotic therapy. I have had a Groshong catheter inserted in my chest. It has never been a problem maintaining the catheter and keeping the area around the insertion clean. Previously, when Dr. Martz was in practice here in Colorado, he started me on the first treatment of the intravenous antibiotic protocol. I was really sick and in bed then. The therapy went on for about eight months and it got me out of bed and functioning as a human being again. I had the catheter removed and felt better for a year or so. However, that has been about six years ago and I have been struggling with flareups of the disease again. Many of you,probably, have had similar experiences, and all of us would love hearing about them. I am listening to the news right now and Colorado Springs has already received their first snow storm. It looks like winter time is on its way and we are going to skip fall. I hope not!!! I hate the cold since i have had this disease. It just makes everything hurt worse.
Be well,
Richard
Lyme disease is a dangerous disease which is transmitted by ticks. Blood-sucking ticks ingest the agents that cause the disease – bacteria of the species Borrelia burgdorferi and its relatives – during a blood meal, and subsequently transmit them to the next victim they feast on, often a person. It is estimated that, in Western Europe, up to half of all ticks carry the bacteria. Although the early symptoms of the illness are quite mild, if left untreated, it can result in serious damage to the skin, the joints, the heart and the nervous system, and effective therapy becomes very difficult.
A team of researchers led by the veterinary bacteriologist professor Reinhard Straubinger at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU) München has now shown, in an animal model, that application of a gel containing the antibiotic azithromycin to the site of the bite rapidly terminates the infection. The efficacy of this local antibiotic therapy for the treatment of borreliosis in humans is now being tested in a Phase III clinical trial. In the meantime, though, patients must still undergo antibiotic treatment for several weeks and, in many cases, the drug must be administered intravenously – which is distressing not only for children. Furthermore, treatment measures are often initiated on suspicion, because the bacteria are not detectable in the blood soon after one has been bitten by an infected tick.
"Our approach simply involves applying a transparent, self-adhesive plaster to the site of the wound," says Straubinger. "Because the plaster contains very little antibiotic, the effects are localized and side-effects are negligible."
Reference: Knauer J, et al. Evaluation of the preventive capacities of a topically applied azithromycin formulation against Lyme borreliosis in a murine model. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy online, Sept. 15, 2011.
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