posted
Is it easier to see what it is then if you take a test?
-------------------- My blog about my condition - http://borreliawenttofar.wordpress.com - Diagnosed with cellular activity for Borrelia, Ehrlichia, Chlamydia Pneu. Also have the herpes simplex virus. Posts: 52 | From Sweden | Registered: Feb 2011
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Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- Remember, that no test is perfect. Lyme is a CLINICAL diagnosis.
But, to answer your question, it totally depends upon WHICH LAB and, perhaps on if an "antibiotic challenge" was done.
It's best to talk to the lab that will be doing the test and your LLMD.
Most labs just do a horrible job, regardless of the circumstances. Most could not see lyme if it waves a big green flag through the microscope.
It's the LAB that makes the most difference.
All that said, sometimes, before a LLMD will order tests, they will have the patient do an Antibiotic Challenge, with hopes that the tests will be clearer. The kind of test also makes a difference.
TF
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 14183
posted
There is a urine test that looks for dead bacteria. (Called LUAT)
Otherwise, the blood tests are all looking for antibodies to lyme, not the lyme bacteria itself.
(There is one very new test here in the U.S. that looks for the lyme bacteria itself, but that just became available a few months ago. The lyme bacteria have to be alive for this test to find them. It cultures your blood to see if lyme will grow.)
So, it is important to know that the blood tests aren't looking for the lyme bacteria at all.
I have heard it said, however, that sometimes if you take meds that kill lyme, then your body will often "wake up" and make antibodies to the lyme bacteria. Then, you are more likely to get a positive lyme test.
I think you have to stop the antibiotics and get the blood test 2 weeks after the meds for this to work.
Here's what a lyme doc has to say about this:
"Sometimes multiple antibiotics have to be tried before the patient feels better. Antibiotics may actually help with the laboratory diagnosis. But patients need to be off antibiotics about 10 to 14 days before the Western blot is repeated. This sounds like a contradiction.
Antibiotics may help convert the test to positive, but patients need to be off antibiotics when the specimen is drawn.
It is well documented in medical literature that the presence of antibiotics may cause false negative borreliosis testing. Therefore, your system should be free of all antibiotics for an accurate blot result.
When the Lyme borrelia are alive, they are geniuses at avoiding the immune system. They may do things like go inside your white blood cells, and come out enclosed by the cell membrane of your own white blood cells! This may partly explain why antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi are often not found when patients are tested.
What may happen when patients are given 4 weeks of tetracycline (or other antibiotics) is that some of the bacteria die. When Borrelia burgdorferi dies, it is less efficient at avoiding the immune system.
That's when antibodies may be formed against Borrelia burgdorferi, converting the negative or equivocal Western blot to positive, in about 36% of cases.
If a borreliosis Western blot is going to be positive, it is usually the first one that is positive. The second blot is the next most likely to be positive, and so on, until the fifth blot.
After that, the curve levels off for conversion to positive. This is based on research I presented in Bologna, Italy in 1994. Some patients had borrelia-associated antibodies finally show on their tenth Western blot! Two Western blots from a reliable lab usually gives the answer.
If a third test is needed, a Lyme Urine Antigen Test (LUAT) is done instead of a third Western blot. Positive LUATs correspond very highly to patients getting better with antibiotics.
False positive LUATs have not been a problem in my practice. The LUAT finds the actual antigen (Borrelia burgdorferi itself), so arguably it should be the test of choice, but the Western blot is more widely accepted, even though it looks for the antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi.
The presence of antibodies are indirect evidence of an infection, not direct evidence like shown in the LUAT. "
This quote can be found in the thread on the Western Blot, found here:
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