Dr. John Lambert:

If after being treated with three weeks' antibiotics for Lyme disease someone is still unwell, my experience and the guidelines I follow are to treat for three more weeks because many patients who do not get better in the first three weeks will get better with an additional three weeks of treatment. This applies to Lyme disease and other infections. I manage other infections this way as well. However, what commonly happens with the current guidelines is people will treat a patient for three weeks and if the patient does not get better, the medical professional will tell him or her the infection is cured and the disease is post-infectious. One cannot know it is post-infectious because it is impossible to grow these bacteria. For this reason, one has to use one's clinical judgment. That is what I mean when I say people are denied further treatment. More people respond to longer courses of treatment and they should be offered further treatment.