I'm amazed at the amount of things I have read lately that talk about Mycoplasma infections (such a M. pneumoniae) as if they are responsive to antibiotics, yet go on to discuss the frequently chronic nature of Mycoplasma infections.

Forums about Lyme or ME/CFS also seem to frequently have patients who have Mycoplasma issues, but so far in my reading a lot of what's reported seems to match what sources, including numerous actual medical journal studies, have to say about it.

I know Mycoplasmas are a complicated subject, but I still find all this very puzzling.

Something else I find puzzling is that it seems to be frequently reported (or at least frequently repeated) that penicillins and other cell wall inhibitor antibiotics are not able to get rid of Mycoplasmas because they lack a cell wall.

Perhaps this is so, and yet perhaps much light is being shed on antibiotics and previously unsuspected modes of antibiotic action.

https://www.nature.com/news/2007/070903/full/news070903-14.html

This and related work seem to tell us that inhibiting cell wall synthesis may not be not the only mode of action for penicillins - with that in mind then, why would penicillins not work on Mycoplasmas?

Has anyone faced this same question before? More importantly, has anyone found an answer to it?

I have no wish to go through a great big ordeal only to end up right back where I started.