| If someone wants to read some real medical texts on the subject, I would encourage them to read the following: NIH: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/chronic-lyme-d... CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/postlds/index.html Lantos, Paul M. "Chronic lyme disease." Infectious Disease Clinics 29.2 (2015): 325-340. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477530/ > The CLD controversy does not, however, straddle a simple divide between 2 opposed scientific factions. Within the scientific community, the concept of CLD has for the most part been rejected. Clinical practice guidelines from numerous North American and European medical societies discourage the diagnosis of CLD and recommend against treating patients with prolonged or repeated antibiotic courses 1-21 > Many patients referred for Lyme disease are ultimately found to have a rheumatologic or neurologic diagnosis. Rheumatologic diagnoses commonly misdiagnosed as Lyme disease include osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, degenerative diseases of the spine, and spondyloarthropathies.26,27,41 Some patients are found to have neurologic diseases, including multiple sclerosis, demyelinating diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, neuropathies, and dementia.27 Some CLD advocates have argued that these various conditions are simply manifestations of Lyme disease,24,42–44 but these hypotheses are untenable In short, there is clearly evidence that people feel symptoms following Lyme Disease, but there is essentially zero evidence that these symptoms are some kind of prolonged, chronic infection that remains impervious to treatment. Extended courses of antibiotics do not improve the situation (and can fatally make it worse), and all the various woo (as mentioned in the article) do not help either. "Chronic Lyme" is far more likely to be auto-immune (rheumatologic) or neurological in nature. It may be triggered by a lyme infection, just like it can be triggered by other non-lyme infections. Auto-immune responses are commonly triggered by severe bacterial or viral infections, and can persist/linger far after the infection itself has cleared up. But the concept of a "chronic" bacterial lyme infection has little to no medical bearing. The fact that this continues is largel attributed to A) auto-immune disorders being difficult to diagnose and treat due to their unique nature and B) hucksters, con-artists, and snake-oil salesmen hawking the latest woo to patients desperately trying to solve their problems. And probably C) a general movement towars believeing random blogs (like the OP!) over medical providers, on the basis of "Big Pharma" or other general conspiracy theories. |
From your first link: "In 2017, scientists at the Tulane National Primate Research Centers, funded in part by an NIH research resources grant, reported evidence of persistent and metabolically active B. burgdorferi after antibiotic treatment in rhesus macaques"
From your second link, to the CDC: "Other experts hypothesize that PTLDS results from a persistent but difficult to detect infection".