Question:
IDSA Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Lyme Disease. ?
Answer:
The long awaited for Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA)
practice guidelines for the treatment of Lyme disease are here:
IDSA Practice Guidelines for the Treatment Lyme Disease,
Wormser et al., CID 2000;31:000 (PDF)
14 pages, includes readable tables.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?CID000342PDF
IDSA Practice Guidelines for the Treatment Lyme Disease,
Wormser et al., CID 2000;31:000 (HTML)
21 pages, and tables must be printed separately.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CID/journal/issues/v31nS2/000342/000...
Sadly, the recommendations are as bad as expected. The "guidelines" include such gems as:
- you probably won't get LD unless a tick is attached more than 48 hours
- no prophylactic treatment for tickbite - wait a month and see how sick you get
- treatment for advanced neuroborreliosis with cognitive impairment: 2 to 4 weeks
of IV rocephin -- with MAYBE a follow up of the same several months later if
patient continues to decline
- if patient is STILL has problems, it must be "post lyme syndrome", and these
guys don't believe in treating any more at that point...
Sad situation when this little gang of doctors gets together to "officially" publish
their bias and ignorance. We can only guess at the harm this document will do
before the damage is undone.