There are generally two types of treatment. One - standard, prefered by a main stream of medicine, 3-4 weeks of doxycyclinum. In most cases this therapy cures the disease completely. But to be honest - there are patients who need extended therapy.

So called "neuroboreliosis" is a more complicated thing. Spirochetes do live in central nervous system, and are hard to kill - their life cycle is sometimes even longer than 4 weeks. Still standard 3 weeks will do the job in some cases, but for majority of patients the extended therapy might be a matter of life and death. Again - for some cases the therapy longer than 3 weeks will do nothing but additional hurt, but for many - might be life-saving.

No, it's not true - the extended therapy does NOT cure all persistent symptoms. Unluckily, a disease causes some permanent damage to our brain and joints, and such scars never vanish - no matter how much antibiotics we pour on them. It's as pointless as treatment with antibiotics a person with damaged vertebral column. Of course along with time the health will improve, but this's because another parts of brain will learn to do the job of destroyed neurons. There are two reasons of performing the extended therapy. In light lyme this is to kill these few spirochetes that might survive the standard one so it prevents re-infections, in some heavy cases, especially neuroboreliosis - most spirochetes will simply survive the standard therapy.

It's extremely important to improve our immune system. Generally, a strong enough organism sometimes can take care about such disease without antibiotics, and surely can minimize negative effects. Antibiotics alone will never kill the every single bacterium, trust me. Some will survive in part of our body with a very low metabolism, and simply our blood will never carry an antibiotic in such places. Some bacteria will develop an antibiotic resistance. The only way to destroy disease completely is improving our own white blood cells, so they can take care about survivors of antibiotic.

Let me describe a therapy I found most balanced of them all.

In case of an early detected infection (rash) - 5 weeks of doxycycline, at least 2x100/daily + some metronidazole, if patient had very weak immune system - additionally another antibiotic. After the therapy from time to time an Elisa IgG test to check if an antibodies level decrease ? the only sure way to check if the treatment was succesful.

In case of advanced Lyme - a longer therapy, till a Herxheimer reaction stop appearing and additionally one or two "life cycles" of bacterium longer (around 9 weeks). The therapy starts with IV, then, after a health improve, changes to normal antibiotics. General rule ? the longer patient had Lyme without a treatment, the longer it takes to cure the disease completely and stronger antibiotics are needed. After the therapy, as usual, sometimes the Elisa IgG test.

Proved neuroboreliosis is a really big problem, treatment must be longer with stronger doses of antibiotics. Some parts of our brain have a really slow metabolism and it takse months for antibiotics to reach them.

Most important part of the therapy is our task of increasing the power of our own immune system. It even might be said that antibiotics are only an addition to the treatment, in most cases of Lyme infection the disease is completely destroyed by our own white blood cells before spirochetes even realize what is going on. A real problem is when we got patient with - let's say - AIDS, in such cases even harderst antibiotics might not work. For patients with a good natural defence nearly always a 3 week doxycycline cycle is enough to cure Lyme completely. Ok, here comes a list of minerals and vitamins that we need to fight with diseases - 80% of people actually have a very strong deficiency of at least some of them, which nearly turns their defence system off. It's hard to realize that our white blood cells are dying from starvation, when we have full stomach. And remember - human body can absorb only a small part at once, so do not take for example 300 mg magnesium in one part. Better take 50 mg 6 times / day.

- Magnesium - absolute minimum is 300 mg daily, but it's preferred to take at least 500 mg / day. Sometimes it's necessary to use magnesium injections, because our body wastes this minerale so fast while fighting against Lyme. Without magnesium our defence simply do not work. It's wise to add some potasium to our diet while taking big doses of magnesium (for example some tomato juice) and some calcium.

- Zinc - 20 mg. Carefully, zinc decreases an absorbtion of some antibiotics, ask your doctor when you can take it - usually it's allowed ~2 hours after antibiotic.

Vitamin C - our best weapon against diseases, it can multiply our abilities to fight a bacterium and virus. At least 500 mg, but best above 1000, even up to 5000. The same as for zinc - it can block antibiotics. Syntetic vitamin C barely works and sometimes can even damage some organs, so try to focus on natural sources. Three oranges daily give a pretty high dose of vitamin C, but I'm afraid it's not enough for the very active disease.

- Fat - soluble vitamins, A, D3, E - around 3000 IU of vitamin A, at least 400 IU vitamin D3, vitamin E - best from natural sources, 300 mg or more.

- Vitamin B complex - 3-5 times a day

- Folic acid and B12 vitamin - they are both extremely important, as with a high level of these vitamins damaged neurons can regenerate, at least partially. Folic acid - at least 0,4 mg, no more than 1 mg, vitamin B12 - best choice is to take an injection then pills with a high dose every day. It might be wise to add some iron to our diet, if we had deficiency of these vitamins before, our body will start to produce red blood cells like crazy. Ask your doc about it.

- Omega 3 and Omega 6 acids. You can buy them in a drugstore, but best sources are blended flaxseeds (can cause light diarrhea) and walnuts. Try to take at least 300% of recommended daily dose. In modern diet Omega 6 is highly overdosed, while there is lack of Omega 3, so try to focus on Omega 3 only.

- Copper, manganese and so on - just buy some multivitamin or multisal, 2 times / day.

- Iodine - 300 um / day (0,3 mg), just in case.

- Additionally, if a patient got thyroid malfunction symptoms, such as low temperature but correct level of thyroid hormones, very carefully dose a T3 hormone. In Lyme sometimes spirochetes activity can block thyroid hormones and until we cure a disease, it's necessary to increase their level - to improve the patient health and activate the immune system.

If your doctor did not instructed you how to increase your own defence system, OR if you have symptoms of a thyroid disease and the doc did not try to cure symptoms - change your doctor, because your current one knows only how to prescribe antibiotics - and it's not enough to cure Lyme.

No, do not listen to stories about "Lyme treatment that last for years". This disease can be cured within few weeks, sometimes months. Mysterious "I'm trying to treat my Lyme for 2 years already without any effect" is usually an efect of wrong diagnosis.