Some thoughts on antibiotics and treating chronic Lyme… When I was first diagnosed in 2005, all I knew to treat Lyme disease with was antibiotics, so I went hard and heavy right away. After taking doxcycline orally for about a month and not noticing any positive results, I asked my naturopath for a PICC line. She refused, citing that it was too drastic and dangerous, so I went to another doctor who would do it.
During the procedure to insert it, the hospital staff unwittingly jabbed my heart with the line, and I started losing blood pressure on the table. They kept me for observation for about an hour and then I drove myself home. Later than night while asleep, I rolled over on it and I thought I was going to die when I experienced something on the level of a heart attack. I didn’t die and believe it or not, I actually got a second PICC line inserted a year later and I resorted to painful intramuscular injections of Bicillin when the PICC lines didn’t have any lasting effect. The doctors I was consulting at the time only knew of antibiotics as a Lyme treatment. When you only have a hammer in your toolbox, you tend to think the solution to every problem can be achieved through hammering a nail.