Treatment of Chronic Lyme Disease

Lyme Disease

The author of this report has been asked to offer a brief report about Lyme disease and some of the facts and issues surrounding the disease. First off, the author will research and discuss what has happened to the prospects of a Lyme disease vaccine. Second, the author will discuss why laboratory testing for Lyme disease is not yet definitive. Finally, the author will discuss what is generally done for the chronic and other effects of Lyme disease that lead patients to suffer. While there are options for dealing with Lyme disease, the disease has proved to be very vexing and troublesome.

As for what has happened with the Lyme disease vaccine, there actually was on in production but it was removed from the market in 2002. The vaccine was apparently at least somewhat effective but it was taken off the market in large part because there was insufficient consumer demand to justify keeping production intact. Further, the CDC asserts that anyone who received the vaccine prior to its discontinuation in 2002 is probably no longer protected from the disease given that the vaccine loses its efficacy over time not unlike a tetanus shot or other immunizations that have to re-done at certain intervals so as to uphold and maintain protection from the relevant disease (CDC, 2015).

As for laboratory testing and Lyme disease, the CDC heavily recommends doing a two-state lab test for the disease due to the amount of false positives and other results issues that can arise if the two-stage test is not done. The first step that is recommended by the CDC is what is known as the EIA test, which is short for enzyme immunoassay. Alternately, the first step can be what is known as the IFA, or indirect immunofluorescence assay. The former is much more commonly used than the latter. With this test, if the results come up negative, then no further tests are generally needed or recommended. If and only if the first test is positive, the testing physician should do what is known as the Western blot test. If the EIA or IFA is positive and the Western blot test is positive, then the patient almost certainly has Lyme disease. It is noted by the CDC that skipping the EIA or IFA is less than wise because the Western blot test can be positive but this does not mean the person has Lyme disease. Only if both tests are positive should a confirmation be levied. In other words, skipping to the Western blot can lead to a false positive (CDC, 2015).

Chronic Lyme disease is nothing to mess with and can result with elongated treatment periods. The general treatment for Lyme disease is two to three weeks of antibiotics. However, that alone might not lead to full recovery. It is typical for patients to enjoy a fairly speedy and complete recovery but this does not happen in every incident. Indeed, about ten to twenty percent of all Lyme patients will encounter problems after the traditional antibiotic therapy is done. The symptoms include muscle aches, cognitive dysfunction and all of this can last up to six months or longer. It is not known why this happens but it most certainly does. Treatment for chronic Lyme disease basically centers on pain management until the chronic symptoms go away. This would include the use of NSAID's and steroids (Giorgi, 2015).