Chronic Lyme disease sufferer’s; be careful when choosing dangerous and unproven treatments. The healthcare profession is full of snake oil salesmen, with many types of licensed practitioners selling unproven and sometimes dangerous treatments for different conditions. Lyme disease in its chronic form has many different treatments being sold to patients who often seek care after the traditional approaches have failed to help. The truth is that just because a method is proven, it does not make it effective or valid. The same goes for unproven treatment that may be as or more effective as a treatment. The buyer of these treatments must be cautious since some medical treatments may be harmful. The Washington Post recently reported on the growing problems of people with ambiguous symptoms being diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease and prescribing dangerous and often expensive treatments that do not work, and may even be life threatening. Unfortunately, traditional healthcare providers are often not very helpful since they only have minimal training in the workings of the musculoskeletal system. Widespread pain is not necessarily Lyme disease. Read more about this here Dangerous unproven treatments for ‘chronic Lyme disease’ are on the rise By Lena H. Sun June 15 An increasing number of Americans with medically ambiguous symptoms are being misdiagnosed with “chronic Lyme disease” and prescribed dangerous and often expensive treatments that do not work, according to a new report. In some instances, patients have died after receiving intensive, long-term and inappropriate courses of intravenous antibiotics that led to septic shock. In other cases, misdiagnosis caused dangerous delays in treatment of a patient’s actual underlying condition. These incorrect diagnoses have existed for years. But public health officials and clinicians say they are alarmed because of the increasing severity and scope of some treatments in recent years, said Christina Nelson, a medical epidemiologist and author of a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of the various treatments, including courses of intravenous antibiotics lasting months and years, have no evidence of effectiveness. Studies have shown that prolonged courses of intravenous antibiotics can often result in serious harm, including death. Read more