Lyme Science Blog

Lyme Disease and Joint Pain: Is It Debris—or a Missed Persistent Infection? New research into Lyme arthritis is challenging long-standing assumptions about what causes persistent symptoms after treatment. For years, many clinicians believed that when patients continued to experience swollen joints, even after treatment with antibiotics, the inflammation was simply due to an overactive immune […]

Babesia Lyme Treatment Failure: Why Healthy Patients Stay Sick Babesia lyme treatment failure is more common than most patients realize. She wasn’t immunocompromised. So why was she still sick months after Lyme treatment? That was the question we kept coming back to. She’d been told Babesia wouldn’t be a problem—unless she had a weakened immune

Can one doxycycline dose really stop Lyme disease? When a patient walks into my office after a tick bite, they often ask: “Isn’t one dose of doxycycline enough to prevent Lyme disease?” That belief traces back to a 2001 study that has, unfortunately, shaped Lyme disease treatment guidelines. But what most people don’t realize is

My Lyme Disease Patient Got Worse on Antibiotics—Until We Adjusted the Dose Can one doxycycline dose really stop Lyme disease? He was ready to quit treatment. The antibiotics were making him feel worse, not better—nausea, fatigue, and a sense that his body was shutting down. He told me, “Doc, I don’t think I can keep

Can you have neurologic Lyme disease even if your spinal tap is normal? When Normal Test Results Hide Active Disease Neurologic Lyme disease spinal tap results are often normal even when patients have active nervous system infection. A landmark 1990 study of 27 chronic neurologic Lyme patients found only 2 had cerebrospinal fluid findings suggestive

My doctor wants to give me steroids—will that make Lyme disease worse? Can you have neurologic Lyme disease even if your spinal tap is normal? It’s a fair concern. Steroids are widely used to reduce inflammation, but they come with significant risks when used during an active infection—especially Lyme disease. The conversation is often oversimplified

Why I Treated Him for Lyme—Even When His Test Was Negative Patients Deserve an Explanation This article is part of an ongoing series addressing persistent myths about Lyme disease. One of the most common—and most important—questions I hear from patients is: “If my Lyme test is negative, why are you still treating me?” It’s a

Unexpected Relief from Allodynia: Lyme Disease Treatment Worked! Allodynia is a neurological condition where non-painful stimuli—like a breeze, the pressure of clothing, or even light touch—cause pain. It’s often associated with central sensitization, where the brain and spinal cord become overly responsive to nerve signals. But sometimes, the trigger is more than just misfiring nerves.

Could Piperacillin Be the Lyme Disease Breakthrough We Need? A recent study published in Science Translational Medicine by researchers at Northwestern University has generated cautious optimism in the Lyme disease community. The study found that an older antibiotic—piperacillin—was able to clear Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, in mice at doses 100 times

Can Lyme disease stay hidden during pregnancy and only emerge after childbirth? A 23-year-old woman from Brooklyn, NY, presented to her primary care physician with bilateral knee swelling and pain three days after delivering a healthy baby girl. She rated the pain as 8 out of 10 in severity and reported that it worsened with