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Treatments for Lyme Disease
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Lyme disease, also known as borreliosis, comes from bites from hard ticks, or from the Ixodes genus of ticks. It is the most common of all tick borne diseases. Lyme disease is an infectious disease characterized in the early stages by its signature “bulls eye” bite mark. There are many widespread signs and symptoms, some at the early stages of the disease while others come on strong in the later stages of the condition.Symptoms of Lyme Disease
Early stage lyme disease signs are:
Fever
Fatigue
Headache
Depression
Sore muscles
Flu like symptoms
Erythema migrans, or the bulls eye rash
Late state lyme disease signs are:
Arthritis
Dizziness
Join, Tendon, Muscle pain
Facial paralysis
Meningitis
Encephalitis
Psychosis
Treating Lyme Disease
Typical treatment for lyme disease is done through antibiotic therapy. Depending on the patient and the stage, there are differing antibiotics given.
Adults – Doxycycline
Children – Amoxicillin
Pregnant Women – Erythromycin
Alternative antibiotics can be cefotaxime and cefuroxime. There are dosing treatments with the antibiotics of two to three weeks of continuous treatment. Late stage lyme disease is treated with ceftriaxone in oral or IV dosing, for at least four if not more weeks. Other late state lyme disease treatments included hydroxychloroquine.
Alternative Treatments of Lyme Disease
Some non pharmaceutical methods of treating Lyme disease include oxygen therapy in hyperbaric chambers. However there is no data to support the effectiveness of this. Other alternative therapies include bee venom for the peptide melittin. This too has no published data to support that it will help the symptoms of lyme disease.
Preventing Lyme Disease
Taking care to dress appropriately when going out to where ticks will be, with long pants and hats. Remove all ticks correctly with tweezers at the head (some reports believe that removal within 36 hours will greatly reduce lyme disease risk). Take special care when handling pets and treat them with an anti tick medication monthly so that they do not carry living ticks inside the house. If there are many small rodents around your location, the deer tick may be prevalent. Take care to treat the area with anti tick sprays and chemicals throughout the yard so that you do not track them into the house or have them imbedded into you.
There was a lyme disease vaccine, the LYMErix vaccine, from Glaxo Smith Kline. Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December of 1998, but amid reports that it made autoimmune side effects, was pulled from the market in February of 2002. New vaccines are now in the research phases.
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