Herbal Products for the Treatment of Chronic Lyme Disease

Lyme Disease is an ever-present diagnosis that is becoming more and more common in the United States. Each year, approximately 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported to CDC by state health departments and the District of Columbia. However, this number does not reflect every case of Lyme disease that is diagnosed in the United States every year. Standard national surveillance is only one way that public health officials can track where a disease is occurring and with what frequency. Recent estimates using other methods suggest that approximately 300,000 people may get Lyme disease each year in the United States. Its occurrence was considered only limited to the geographic region of the Northeast, but current data from the CDC demonstrates that it has been detected in every state except for Hawaii. Current treatment protocols are limited to acute antibiotic therapies and treatment for symptoms (pain, inflammation, depression, fatigue) with minimal result. There is an increasing pool of evidence that herbal/botanical intervention may prove to be a better treatment solution with better long-term outcomes.