@YARNLADY Raphael Stricker has treated a lot of people with (what he calls) chronic lyme disease, but that alone does not qualify him as an expert. He runs his own unvalidated tests to diagnose people and follow their treatment course. Interestingly, he practices in Northern California, where true lyme disease is very rare (in contrast to the East Coast, where it is endemic). Feel free to PM me for more information that I prefer not to discuss in public.
@janbb @daloon @rowenaz The majority of infectious disease doctors such as myself do not believe that the entity known as chronic lyme disease represents a chronic infection. It may represent an autoimmune response to the initial infection, with ongoing joint, muscle and tissue injury. However, long term antibiotic therapy for chronic lyme doesn’t make sense (the majority of bacterial infections can be cured with a week to a month of antibiotics) and has been invalidated by careful, double blind clinical studies. So, while controversy exists in the area (as summarized in this excellent review from the New England Journal of Medicine), only a handful of doctors believe in antibiotics for chronic lyme but they and their patients are very vocal, despite mounting evidence to dispute their ideas.