By Christine Kilgore, MEDSCAPE

Lyme infection-associated chronic illness (IACI) is real, often debilitating and long-lasting, and in urgent need of research that prioritizes treatments to improve symptoms affecting patients’ function and quality of life — rather than waiting for certainty about cause, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) concluded in a new report on Lyme IACI.

An estimated tens of thousands of people in the US each year develop what the NASEM is calling Lyme IACI, often presenting with chronic fatigue, recurring pain, cognitive dysfunction and/or sleep disturbances despite receiving recommended antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease, the Academy’s Committee on the Evidence Base for Lyme IACI Treatment wrote. READ MORE