What is the recognised treatment regime in Lyme Disease?

The LDA follows the Ilads (International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society) guidelines on treatment of Lyme Disease. This is view is supported by Clinical Answers, the NLH'S Primary Care Question Answering Service* for the NHS.

The following extract is taken from a Q&A are dated 14th September 2005.

http://www.clinicalanswers.nhs.uk/index.cfm?question=1104

What is the recognised treatment regime in Lyme Disease?

“The early use of antibiotics can prevent persistent, recurrent, and refractory Lyme disease.

The duration of therapy should be guided by clinical response, rather than by an arbitrary (i.e., 30 day) treatment course.

The practice of stopping antibiotics to allow for delayed recovery is not recommended for persistent Lyme disease. In these cases, it is reasonable to continue treatment for several months after clinical and laboratory abnormalities have begun to resolve and symptoms have disappeared.”

However, the full section in the guideline gives much more detail and we recommend you read that (http://www.guidelines.gov/summary/summary.aspx?view_id=1&doc_id=4836)

* The Primary Care Question Answering Service is provided by the National Library for Health (NLH). Essentially the NLH Question-Answering service seeks to answer questions that health professionals have been unable to answer for themselves.