by Althea Northage-Orr, L.Ac., RH (AHG)
Lyme disease is a complex disease that has many controversial aspects: its transmission, the methodologies used for testing, whether or not there is a chronic aspect (and if so, how to treat it) are all subject to debate. The official line presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is that it is a tick-borne disease with no other route of transmission, that it is fully treatable by a short course of antibiotics, and that there is no such thing as chronic Lyme disease, although there is a vaguely known condition called “post-Lyme syndrome” (CDC 2012).
The other end of the spectrum is represented by “Lyme–literate doctors” (LLDs), various Lyme support organizations and alternative practitioners specializing in Lyme treatments. Their positions vary, the extreme end being that Lyme disease is epidemic, almost impossible to treat without serious long-term antibiotic therapy in very high doses, and that it can be passed through breast milk, sexual contact and also by fleas, mites, mosquitoes and blood/body fluid contact.
Treatments include herbal regimens, heat therapies, energetic treatments with devices such as the Rife machine, and of course antibiotic therapies in a variety of combinations and usually long duration, frequently in the form of intravenous treatments. In this paper I will address many of these issues, and suggest a protocol for treatment that steers a middle course between these two positions.