Treatment and Intervention for Lyme Disease (2024)

FAQs

Treatment and Intervention for Lyme Disease? ›

The standard treatment for Lyme disease is an antibiotic taken as a pill. The treatment usually lasts 10 to 14 days. Treatment may be longer depending on your symptoms. It's important to take all pills as directed even if you're feeling better.

The antibiotics most commonly used to treat Lyme disease include doxycycline, amoxicillin, or cefuroxime axetil. Early diagnosis and proper antibiotic treatment of Lyme disease can help prevent more severe disease. The antibiotic used and the length of treatment depends on many factors, including: Patient symptoms.

Most of the people who get Lyme disease and receive treatment early will be fine. Treatment can cure Lyme disease but you might still have some long-term effects. Untreated Lyme disease may contribute to other serious problems but it's rarely fatal.

Early localized Lyme disease — Early localized Lyme disease (the erythema migrans rash, with or without flu-like symptoms) is treated with oral antibiotics, usually doxycycline, amoxicillin, or cefuroxime, taken daily. Doxycycline is given for 10 to 21 days, and amoxicillin and cefuroxime are given for 14 to 21 days.

Clinical trials of new vaccines for Lyme disease are currently underway. Valneva and Pfizer have developed a Lyme disease vaccine candidate, VLA15, that is currently in Phase 3 human trials. VLA15 is a multivalent, protein subunit vaccine that targets the outer surface protein A (OspA) of Borrelia.

burgdorferi and other bacteria use to survive and adapt to their highly varied environments. Unfortunately, these same adaptive abilities may also provide B. burgdorferi the ability to survive an onslaught of antibiotics.

While Lyme disease is curable, the test for Lyme disease may stay positive for the rest of the patient's life. Because Borrelia burgdorferi does not stay in the blood and is difficult to grow in a lab, it is unreliable to test directly for the bacteria with a blood test.

Lyme disease is an infection caused by bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi. Many people infected with the Lyme bacteria will never have symptoms and may cure it on their own without treatment. Lyme disease, if symptomatic, usually starts with a rash that is often described as a "bullseye."

Can a person die from Lyme disease? Deaths from Lyme disease are extremely rare. Lyme carditis is a condition that can develop from Lyme disease and interrupt the usual electrical functioning of the heart. It occurs in about 1–10 out of every 100 cases of Lyme disease in the U.S.

What happens if you don't treat Lyme disease? ›

More serious symptoms may develop if Lyme disease is not treated, or it's not treated early. These symptoms can include: pain and swelling in the joints. nerve problems – like numbness or pain in your limbs.

Most cases of Lyme disease can be prevented or cured with prompt antibiotic treatment. If a preventive antibiotic is needed, a single dose of doxycycline will suffice but only if given in the first 72 hours after the tick has attached. To treat active disease, antibiotics are usually given for 2 to 4 weeks.

The disease can be spread when an infected tick bites a person and stays attached for a period of time. In general, the tick must be attached for 36 to 48 hours or more. Lyme disease does not spread from one person to another. Transfer of the bacteria from an infected pregnant woman to her fetus is extremely rare.

Treatment of Early Lyme Disease

Serologic testing is appropriate for patients who present more than 3 weeks after tick exposure. Treatment for 10 to 14 days is recommended (10 d for doxycycline and 14 d for amoxicillin, cefuroxime axetil, or phenoxymethylpenicillin).

For early Lyme disease, a short course of oral antibiotics, such as doxycycline or amoxicillin, cures the majority of cases. In more complicated cases, Lyme disease can usually be successfully treated with three to four weeks of antibiotic therapy.

About “90% of people fully recover” from Lyme disease, Dr. Auwaerter said. “There is a lag that some people experience that can take weeks or even a couple months to fully improve but antibiotics eradicate the bacteria.”

Usually, Lyme disease completely resolves with a short course of antibiotics. But Lyme disease is not always a simple illness—it can cause prolonged symptoms if left untreated and sometimes even despite effective treatment, a phenomenon which is not well understood.