Aach, I apologize if I sounded strident, Eeyore. Same as with ME/CFS, the Lyme story isn't restricted to labs and clinical evaluations or research. There are back stories, massive labyrinths of them.
For instance, 30 years ago, researchers found that antibiotics couldn't cure a lot of Lyme patients. Reports are that in a seminal study, Lyme manifestations (post-treatment of acute cases) were divvied up into two groups: Major manifestations, which included Myocarditis and meningitis and resistant arthritis (for a total of three), and Minor manifestations, which only totaled five in number, and included headaches and facial palsy and brief arthritis without swelling, and tachycardia, and arthralgias.
That's it. Five "minor" symptoms. Any idea how many Lyme symptoms they left out? Symptoms like Cognitive decline, and vertigo, and extreme fatigue, and muscle weakness, and breathlessness, and peripheral neuropathy and...well, you get the gist.
So, they didn't include what many believe to be some of the most debilitating of symptoms. They only added those five "Minor" symptoms.
Why were they called Minor, regardless of their severity or intensity? Good question. All I can tell you is that the authors said that once they had bifurcated the symptoms, they were then able to show that their antibiotic therapy "cured" or prevented the three "Major" symptoms.
And those five Minor symptoms that seemingly were not judged by degree or intensity? Well, up to 50% of patients reported treatment failure. That's 50% remained sick.
Sooooo, if the symptoms had not been split, that means that the touted abx cure - tetracycline btw, just like today's recommended doxy, only at FIVE TIMES current recommended dosages - would only have cured about half of the patients. But, now it could be accurately (albeit somewhat disingenuously) reported that recommended abx therapy cured all major manifestations of Lyme.
When you read about how recommended abx cures almost all cases of Lyme, keep that little backstory in mind. And remember that there are a lot more where that came from.
I am embarrassed to confess I can't remember how to cut and paste links and stuff.
But if you're interested in that back story, check out the July 1983 Annals of Internal Medicine study by Steere et al. It's behind a paywall.