My belief is that “long Lyme” is mostly fake. None of the symptoms can be objectively measured.
Imagine telling people that after you recover from the flu you might experience entirely subjective symptoms that mysteriously resemble the symptoms of getting older. What percent of people would claim to experience those symptoms?
Higher recovery rates are reported in cultures that talk less about long Lyme.
The people who do genuinely have long-term symptoms generally had knees that looked like grapefruits by the time they saw a doctor.
A very effective Lyme vaccine is in fact manufactured and sold, but only for use on dogs. Just find yourself a morally flexible vet. Failing that, monitoring for symptoms and taking a large dose of antibiotics within ~48 hours of symptoms is extremely effective.
I live near Peekskill and have had Lyme twice. The first time it took a while to diagnose, as I knew nothing about it, and it had a negative impact on my summer for sure. The second time I had purchased grey market antibiotics and immediately took a large dose when symptoms appeared. I then went to the doctor, who strongly approved of my decision.
My impression is that the kind of person who is paranoid enough about Lyme to have written this post is not the kind of person who ends up with any kind of long term adverse effects. You have symptoms, you take the antibiotics, and they work. If you’re worried about gut flora or whatever, follow up with probiotics, or a high quality yogurt. You’ll be fine.
Properly diagnosed and treated Lyme is significantly less annoying than the flu. You just have to know what to look out for—the red ring rash, night sweats, lethargy, etc. If you catch it before you have major joint swelling (which takes months), you’re A-OK. The western blot test for it is cheap, but also, very occasionally taking antibiotics unnecessarily has few consequences—it’s the same stuff people take for such horrifying scourges as teenage acne.