HOW LONG?

[skarey]

How long on ABX until you began to notice a improvement in health?  Please vote and then comment on exact time.  I've been on abx for exactly a month now and don't notice ANY improvement... If anything I feel worse.....  

Thanks.

[Stephen898]

4 months.

[jason80]

There are various factors that need to be considered: how long was one ill before going on abx treatment and how widespread are the symptoms. Anyway, I've been on for ~ 1.5mo and have not observed any benefit, but I'm keeping the faith.

[Hope75]

Difficult to pick an answer on that one.  My symptoms wax and wane about every 4-6 weeks and I went into antibiotic treatment on one of my good times.  So, it's hard to tell.  But, I will tell you that I haven't had the worst of my symptoms since beginning treatment a few months ago.  It has definitely improved.  My bad days aren't as bad and there are fewer of them!  It is very slow though.  Keep the faith.  I was worried that my Doxy was not helping (still a little worried) because I didn't really feel a Herx on it.  I don't know if you recall, but I started with minocycline and broke out into hives for like 6 weeks.  The jury is still out as to whether that was a herx or an allergic reaction.  Hang in there.  Feeling bad might be a prelude to feeling good!

[JackieCalifornia]

My treatment was first to knock out babesia, and after about 4 months of that, I had 'only' Lyme to deal with and was feeling much better than before.  Then I had about 9 months of discontinuous abx treatment for Lyme, interrupted due to reaction to the meds.  

About 15 months after beginning meds, I was feeling VERY good, then had more meds reactions.  So "a year" is probably an accurate response from me but I showed generally uptrend in how I felt, with some plateaus and set backs.

Depending on coinfections and variations in treatment and body chemistry, I would guess it's different for everyone.  Also remember:  Lyme bacteria have a slow reproductive cycle, and go into cyst form where abx have a hard time reaching them, so it takes time to bust the cysts and kill the bugs, and I've read that when under assault, the bugs do encyst to weather the adverse environment.  There is no way to speed that up:  it just takes time.

As Wonko says:  Give it time.  I was "planning" on being well in a year, and I'm still not there, due to medication reactions.  BUT I am much better and doing the medication was the right thing to do.  I was not functioning on a daily basis before treatment, and while I am not my old self now, I'm doing far better and have learned to accommodate the bad days to some extent.  

Patience!

[patsy10]

Four months for me.

[wonko]

This is so difficult to answer, because treatment does not mean monotonic improvement.  It's a lot of ups and downs, at least for me.

I felt "something" the very first week of antibiotics that gave me hope.  I'm at 8.5 months into treatment now, and though I've made improvements, I can still "unravel" and go pretty much back to square one.  

I did get worse during treatment than I was before.  

Before treatment, I had very little day-to-day- variation in the severity and type of symptoms.  Now, it's really a toss of the dice everyday, I never know if I'll be doing relatively well or if I'll be exhausted and sick.  I can go between these extremes in just a day or two.

The punch line: Give it time.