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My mom has had Lyme disease for over ten years now. When it the disease was active in her body, she tried many different medications to help fight the illness, and many of them failed. I am always interested in Lyme disease because it is something prevalent in my family and much more common than people realize. In class, I analyzed a study on Lyme disease and the effectiveness of the antibiotic ceftriaxone. This antibiotic is used today to treat other infections, but it has recently been tested to see if it is effective in treating Lyme Disease as well.

This article discusses a 2-arm randomized clinical trial (RCT) to determine if the ceftriaxone antibiotic is effective in post Lyme syndrome (PLS) patients in treating fatigue, mental cognition, and infection1. The experiment was double-masked and placebo-controlled. There was a group of 55 patients with PLS and they were randomly assigned to receive the treatment or the placebo. After 6 months, the researchers conducted an 11-item fatigue questionnaire, a reaction time test to test mental cognition, and laboratory measures to determine infection. There was significant improvement in fatigue with the antibiotic (RR= 3.5, CI= 1.5 – 8.03, p= 0.001). However, the antibiotic did not help with mental cognition or infection. Therefore, researchers concluded that ceftriaxone is not a good antibiotic for treating PLS, because it only helps significantly with fatigue. These findings were built upon by another study that showed that ceftriaxone was indeed effective in treating those who suffered from join pain from Lyme Disease and were resistant to penicillin2. I think more research needs to be done to determine the effectiveness of this drug and whether it is more effective at different stages of Lyme Disease and for different symptoms. I think it could be a good alternative for people that are resistant to penicillin, which is a common treatment for Lyme disease.

  1. Krupp, LB et al. “Study and Treatment of Post Lyme Disease (STOP-LD): a Randomized Double Masked Clinical Trial.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 24 June 2003, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Lyme%2Bdisease%2Band%2Ba%2Brandomized%2Bclinical%2Btrial.
  2. Dattwyler, R., Halperin, J., Pass, H., & Luft, B. (1987). Ceftriaxone as Effective Therapy in Refractory Lyme Disease.The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 155(6), 1322-1325. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30106384