Makes complete sense!!! Curious to hear what you are doing for your Lyme Treatment???
I'm on Biaxin and amoxicillin (and metronidazole on and off). Without it I wouldn't be able to come to these boards and post even on occation. Interestingly enough my own experiences coincide with the ones in the study: Biaxin (in combination) works best. Tetracycline, doxycycline and ceftriaxone, works not so well.
What I really think we can take from the study, is that the people with CFS responds just as well to the antibiotics as people with CLD. And it's no surprise, take a look at what CLD really is, it's
ME/CFS symptoms which comes post an infection. And IMO, it doesn't really matter if the trigger is EBV, giardia or Borrelia.
One could wonder if what's seen in the antibiotics study on CFS and CLD patients by Donta is merely a placebo effect. To that I have three comments:
1) If it was a placebo effect, one
wouldn't expect that the people given the
different antibiotics responded significantly
differently (since a pill is a pill). Except for the antibiotic given intravenously, were one would expect a better placebo effect. But in fact, the group given the intravenous ceftriaxone performed poorly.
2) The patients doesn't simply say they get better, one can see it on the SPECT scans. This rules out patients simply assuming/thinking that the treatment has worked, and responding accordingly when asked about their symptoms.
3) A large study was done on people with ME symptoms post an infection (read: chronic lyme) and they found the following about placebo effects treating that group:
Among the seropositive patients who were treated with antibiotics, there was improvement in the score on the physical-component summary scale of the SF-36, the mental-component summary scale, or both in 37 percent, no change in 29 percent, and worsening in 34 percent; among seropositive patients receiving placebo, there was improvement in 40 percent, no change in 26 percent, and worsening in 34 percent (P=0.96 for the comparison between treatment groups). The results were similar for the seronegative patients. So, using the antibiotics
ceftriaxone and
doxycycline (antibiotics which performed poorly in Donta's study) they found out that they didn't have a effect better than a placebo effect. In Donta's study other antibiotics (plaquenil/clarithromycin)
have a great effect, and the ones expected to not perform better than a placebo (ceftriaxone/doxycycline) didn't do so well.
Since the patients tend to relapse once off antibiotics, I think what we're seeing in the Donta study on CFS and CLD is an
immune modulating effect from the antibiotics. Both clarithromycin and plaquenil are known to modulate the immune system... And this is good news for ME patients, since it means they'll have the odds on their side if they decide to give it a go. From my experience, 2-3 months in, one would except a major symptom alleviation.