Treating Lyme Disease

Summary & Participants

If you are infected with Lyme disease, early treatment is crucial for preventing permanent damage. How are the symptoms and complications of Lyme disease treated? Join our panel of experts as they discuss treatment strategies for this increasingly common disease.

Medically Reviewed On: July 21, 2008

Webcast Transcript

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Welcome to our webcast. I'm David Folk Thomas. We're going to be talking about treatments for Lyme disease. Lyme disease is spread by deer ticks. Hopefully you can prevent being infected, but if you're not so lucky we're going to tell you what you need to do, the treatments you need to get to help get rid of the disease or treat the disease.

Joining me to discuss it, on my left, is Dr. Alex McMeeking. He's an assistant professor of medicine at NYU Medical Center in New York, and also Dr. Brent Wise, a clinical instructor of medicine, also at NYU Medical Center in New York. Doctors, thanks for joining me.

Alex, let's start with you. What's the first-line treatment if you've been diagnosed with Lyme disease?

ALEX McMEEKING, MD: For most people we use a drug called doxycycline, which is a form of tetracycline. It's usually dosed one pill twice daily for anywhere from 14 to 21 days. It's not the best drug in the world to give to children, so in children we usually treat them with something called amoxicillin, which most parents will be familiar with. It's also used for other common pediatric infections.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Are those antibiotics?

ALEX McMEEKING, MD: Exactly, exactly. And amoxicillin is used for many other childhood infections, also. They're both quite effective in treating the majority of cases of early Lyme disease.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Brent, how long is this first treatment, these antibiotics, prescribed for?

BRENT WISE, MD: As Alex said, from 14 to 21 days with either doxycycline or amoxicillin. Sometimes an antibiotic called Cefuroxime is employed, as well.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: How much of the time will this take care of it?

BRENT WISE, MD: This takes care of the vast majority of early cases. If, unfortunately, it has not been caught early and there are more late manifestations of the illness, we sometimes have to do longer courses of antibiotics and sometimes use intravenous antibiotics straight into the bloodstream.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Alex, what are some of those later manifestations Brent was alluding to?

ALEX McMEEKING, MD: Possibly arthritis that doesn't respond to oral therapies, neurologic Lyme disease -- sometimes people can get manifestations in the central nervous system of Lyme disease, and sometimes people can get heart involvement with conduction abnormalities and heart arrhythmias. Also, occasionally -- thank goodness, it hasn't happened too often -- but I've had a couple of people who have gotten Lyme disease during pregnancy. Again, they usually recommend using intravenous antibiotics in that situation.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: As far as if you have some of these later stage developments -- nervous system involvement, et cetera -- then these antibiotics, what do you do beyond them?

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