Lyme: Fight Harder For Science and End This War

I just had a flashback. When I was diagnosed with Lyme, I knew little about it. I went to the first infectious disease doctor with my bullseye still present, asking lots of questions. Among them, are you sure this three weeks of doxycycline is enough. He smiled, and with his eyes fixed on his computer, he said, "Yes, it's more than enough. In fact, I could just tell you to take ten days but then you'd come back later if anything went haywire and ask why I didn't give you twenty-one." He looked up, "Call me if anything goes crazy." A month later, I called. I woke up with a very sore throat and fever two days before my brother's wedding and a gland in my neck that felt like a pulsating grape. It was movable but scarily large. He said if it didn't go down in a few weeks, to let him know. It didn't, so I called again. He thought I should have it biopsied. I thought I should go see my ear, nose and throat doctor instead, who sent me for an ultrasound but felt it was a remnant of Lyme. The radiologist said it was big, but symmetrical, and not particularly alarming. He also found a few more and said to have my neck rescanned in three months. I want to point out that this symptom is extremely typical of a Lyme co-infection called Bartonella, which of course, I did not know at the time. Is that what the ID doc meant when he said to reach out if anything went crazy? He seemed more than willing to have me get a biopsy of a lymph node that sits on top of my carotid artery, wh...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news