How to treat AS & Lyme Disease?

Question:
Please answer a question for me. I have AS I hurt all the time and I have taken many drugs & pain relievers over the years. I am now on Darvocet 2 PILLS 4 x'S A DAY 100MG for the pain, anyway, I was recently bitten by a tick. The blood works shows that I got Lyme disease. Will this come back again & again? I was in Horrible pain. Every Joint in my body was on fire and hurt like heck. I ran a Fever and stomach upset.

Answer:
I don’t know much about Lyme Disease, but I’ve read a bit about it over the years. Ticks are very common where I live, so there is info posters about it all over the place telling us to watch the bit carefully...If it gets a bit red, we are supposed to get to the doc ASAP... What I have understood, is that early intervention with antibiotics will prevent long term problems. It is far more complicated if a person gets bitten, and don’t know about it (it’s possible) and then get symptoms after a while, like e.g. joint problems... I met a man some years ago that was recovering, it took him years. He didn’t get the proper diagnose until a long while after he must have been bitten without knowing it.I tend to think that you did not have a joint infection with bacteria. First of all, treatment a septic arthritis requiring usually daily drainage of the joint. Patients take a long time to recover and may have continued pain and joint inflammation long after the bacteria are dead due to bacterial debris. We treat septic arthritis with antibiotics for at least 2 weeks intravenously and often up to 4 weeks. A dose of augmentation 100 mg is fine for strep throat but would not be adequate treatment for septic arthritis. Nor do I think you have a disc space infection, disciitis. Possibly you have a bacterial infection of one of the lymph nodes in your neck which caused some neck pain and that could have improved in a few days. Or it's the well known placebo effect. You would have been a lot sicker with bacteria in the joints of your spine.