Do others believe in this? I do.

[cave76]

"a 2001 article in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that treatment with a single dose of 200 mg of doxycycline within 72 hours of removing a tick can prevent the development of Lyme disease"

Original source
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200107123450201

(naturally it wouldn't prevent any of the co-infections--but...........)

[cave76]

Putting  the 'opportunistic infections'  bit between my  teeth and running with it (with absolutely no proof, but gotta start somewhere).

Where else do we hear about opportunistic infections---- HIV/AIDS

It's almost impossible to Google the word 'opportunistic' without pages and pages of hits.

But one of them brought this up:

"[...] clear from numerous presentations that opportunistic infections (OIs) continue to occur both in North America and abroad. These HIV-related complications are occurring because many patients are not receiving HAART due to lack of knowledge that they are infected with HIV, lack of access to care, or failure to respond to available antiretroviral agents."

"They noted that the incidence of appendicitis in HIV-infected patients was 4 times higher than that in age-matched controls. In addition, there was a trend toward a higher rate of perforation. "

http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/443384

Complications (tick co-infections?)  occurring because " due to lack of knowledge that they are infected with HIV, lack of access to care, or failure to respond to available antiretroviral agents."

Just substitute Lyme and antibiotics for two words in that.

O.K. Shoot holes in my all too hasty posit. (grin)

[cave76]

" the risk of taking prophylactic antibiotics seems small compared to the cost of later developing chronic Lyme. "

I certainly agree. The 'risk of antibiotic resistance' is usually brought out when warning people about the overuse of antibiotics. Should I drag out the overused story about teens with acne? Or, even better, how many tons of antibiotics are used in agri-business?

Somewhere I saw an article about the cost to our society (in dollars) by the loss of productivity from people too sick to work because of Lyme. Bankruptcy, foreclosure on homes etc.

The prophylactic use of antibiotics (upon any tick bite) is starting to be mentioned more and more. I've even seen CDC mention it but have lost that link; I might have even posted it here. (Or maybe some IDSA guy gasped and said----TAKE IT OFF!)

Perhaps mojo will see this and tell us of her ex-husbands experience with prophylactic administration of antibiotics. I found that EXTREMELY interesting and telling.

" It is my understanding that the co-infections are sort of opportunistic, they don't seem to take hold of folks who get treated for just Lyme when it is caught early"

That's an interesting concept and I've heard it also----- the term 'opportunistic' applied to co-infections. Do you know of any articles that might address that? Between the two of us, maybe we can find something. "Anecdotal" is  fine also------ I pick up tidbits from anecdotal stories also.

A tick bite (or even 'suspicion of tick bite') and now I would take some doxy. Just like doctors do.  If only we'd known.

[wonko]

I don't actually know when I was bit/infected, but if I knew then what I knew now, I would have insisted on at least a couple of weeks of antibiotics if I knew I had a tick bite!

I look at a lot of medical decisions in terms of cost/risk, and the risk of taking prophylatic antibiotics seems small compared to the cost of later developing chronic Lyme.

As for the co-infections, that is much harder to say.  It is my understanding that the co-infections are sort of opportunistic, they don't seem to take hold of folks who get treated for just Lyme when it is caught early.  But I'm basing that only on my interpretation of anecdotal evidence.  And even if it is the case that certain co-infections will only cause trouble once Lyme goes chronic, it is probably not true of all of them.