[netaustin]

I contracted Lyme disease while on vacation in Cape Cod last year. The first symptom was left-side facial paralysis, which my physician diagnosed as Bell's Palsy, so I spent two weeks on steroids before we figured out the real issue. Three weeks of doxycycline cured the Lyme but left feeling pretty wrecked for more than a month afterwards! I seem to have avoided the chronic symptoms some people experience, but a low-dose antibiotic would have been great.

[dec0dedab0de]

Just to be pedantic, Bell's Palsy is the name of the condition not the cause. So it was Bell's Palsy caused by Lyme disease.

I have noticed that the line between condition and cause is often overlooked, even by doctors. For example this leads to people thinking Pinkeye/conjunctivitis is highly contagious, when it is still conjunctivitis if it is caused by getting something in your eye. I think that holds for everything that ends in -itis too Sinusitis, Arthritis, Tendonitis, etc.

I know that is a bit of a tangent, but you reminded me of someone who had bell's palsy telling me that it was actually shingles. I explained that just because it was caused by shingles doesn't mean it stops being Bell's Palsy, just like how it is still a cough if it's from the flu or from smoking. They ended up getting really angry at me about it, but I think hn might appreciate the semantics a bit more.

[netaustin]

Not a tangent! I certainly appreciate the semantics, and there seems to be some academic interest in the semantics alone! Some Lyme researchers would like to call it “Lyme Disease Facial Palsy” or LDFP to encourage practitioners to differentiate early. Not sure that would’ve helped me, I had no bullseye rash and no fever, just horrible fatigue and facial paralysis. The idea would be to encourage practitioners in Lyme-prone locations to see Bell’s, test for Lyme, which I think your point about overlooking the link between condition and the cause supports. Lyme showed up on a blood test my PCP ordered only after I completed a course of prednisone with no improvement and much misery. He didn’t even tell me he added a Lyme test, but I’m glad he did!

Here’s one paper on the topic I remember reading at the time: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8791801/

[brady8]

Much of being a physician is pattern recognition - the vast majority of Bell's Palsy is idiopathic (generally viral), and thus that's how we usually treat it. If we tested everybody for everything everytime the health system(s) would collapse.

It definitely helps as a patient to advocate, and add anything that a physician like myself maybe wouldn't always ask, like if you've been a tick-infested area and/or discovered a tick attached to yourself recently.

[engineer_22]

Do you have trouble reading other people's emotions?

[y-c-o-m-b]

Doxycycline is my favorite antibiotic and the most effective against chronic sinusitis and chronic prostatitis for me. I only take it maybe once a year, but it does wonders for a good long time.

It also cured my nearly lifelong IBS-D about a decade ago. I had a small re-occurrence of IBS-D last year after so many years without it. I was able to convince the doc that it fixed it for me in the past, so he prescribed me doxycycline again. Boom! All fixed just like before.

I have no idea why that particular antibiotic does the trick, but I've taken so many others from amoxicillin line, bactrim, even cipro, flagyl (gross) etc. and only doxy is the silver bullet for me it seems.

[junto]

Doxy turned my IBD into UC. Horrible disease that vastly increases your chances of bowel cancer. Wiping out your gut bacteria richness should not be done lightly.

[Klonoar]

That’s wild that it had that effect for you with any form of IBS. I know two people with Crohns where it set off and irritated their systemd for months.

[voidmain0001]

I'm on a second round of Doxy. The first was 21 days and now I have a 60 day prescription. It doesn't knock me out. I take the first dose early in the morning with a lot of water. I don't eat until noon, but not before first taking a capsule of probiotics to replenish gut bacteria. I take the second Doxy in the evening with a meal. Then 3 hours later I take another probiotic capsule to restore gut bacteria overnight. Maybe that regime is helping or maybe I'm just fortunate.

[ToDougie]

Which probiotic?

[hentrep]

Disclaimer: Not a doctor.

I think you’re alluding to this in your last statement, but standard treatment for Lyme can absolutely wreck your natural gut microbiome. This could explain some of the lingering chronic effects post-treatment. Did you try supplementing with fermented foods or probiotics after completing dox?

[netaustin]

Oh yeah, it just took time. Pill-based probiotics didn’t seem to work, but food (or time) did after a couple months.

[mikepurvis]

My kid contracted it from a tick bite while camping in Ontario; it showed as joint pain in the legs that would come and go for like a week at a time. Made it tough to explain to the doctors as by the time we'd get there, he'd be fine again.

In the end it was four weeks of doxycycline— that was several months ago and it doesn't seem to have recurred, thankfully.

[serial_dev]

A couple of years ago I had about 10 tick bites and one of them resulted in the signature bull’s-eye rash. Thankfully, I was aware of the ticks and I was checking for the bull’s-eye rash to appear and it got treated with doxycycline.

Many people face symptoms months after the bite or they might not remember getting bitten by a tick so it’s common that it is misdiagnosed and they get all kinds of ineffective and / or unnecessary meds, so I added it to my “list of illnesses to check” in case I ever get unexplainable neurological issues, fatigue and joint problems.

[tasuki]

> was checking for the bull’s-eye rash to appear

Note that the absence of that wouldn't mean you didn't get lyme disease.

Where I live, most of the ticks carry lyme disease, yet not that many people get infected: if you pull it out quickly, you greatly reduce the chance of getting infected. Of the people I know, perhaps 20% had lyme disease (and knew about it, I must add).

[e40]

I had a co-worker that had a Bell's Palsy diagnosis and it turned out to be Lyme disease. Don't know which antibiotic they took, but he did get clear of it in a few months.