According to Lorraine Johnson, the CALDA Lyme Policy Wonk, two poster sessions at the IDSA annual meeting last fall stated that most of IDSA treatment guidelines, including those for Lyme Disease, are based mainly on opinion, not actual scientific evidence. Only 15% of their “strong recommendations” are supported by “strong evidence.”

In an article in the medical journal Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice, IDSA member Thomas File, Jr, MD., one of the meeting presenters, states:

Ideally, all recommendations from guidelines would be based on high-level, graded evidence (eg, randomized clinical trials). However, because published level I evidence is not often available, guideline writers are challenged with considering a vast array of different levels of support and creating clinically applicable and clear recommendations from it. Only in the minority instances is there an abundance of evidence available that leads directly to an indisputable recommendation.

Click here to download a free PDF of the journal article, Guiding in the Face of Minimal Evidence.

Also see my previous post on Lyme Disease Blog – IDSA Review Panel Upholds Treatment Guidelines.

Stressors like:

• Chronic Lyme shows up differently in each person.
• Chronic Lyme treatment doesn’t follow any one particular protocol.
• Healing chronic Lyme doesn’t follow any one particular path.
• Healing chronic Lyme takes much longer than most patients, or their friends and families, expect.
• Many doctors who treat for Lyme don’t understand how complex an illness it is and therefore don’t treat it long or comprehensively enough
• Many doctors who successfully treat long-term Lyme patients do so under the radar of the traditional medical establishment because some have either lost or been threatened with losing their medical licenses.

None of this is news to anyone who has struggled with chronic Lyme. It’s very difficult to get well when you feel the deck in stacked against you.

If you’re tired of spending hours researching Lyme on the Web,
If you’re confused about all the conflicting information,
If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your health issues in a public forum,

We can help!

We can help you sort through the maze of options, information, and conflicting advice on Lyme. More important, we can provide you with personal support, daily if needed, to conquer your illness and regain your health (and sanity!).

While much of the information on this blog is free, soon we’ll launch a very reasonable membership service. By joining, you’ll be able to listen to monthly podcasts by an expert in the field of Lyme diagnosis and treatment and more importantly, be able to join others with chronic Lyme on your own private email list. Support at your fingertips from people who know about you and your specific health situation. Stay tuned for more information.