im only on medicaid and i dont have any established credit or financial ways of affording a llmd so could a infectious specialist test you for all lyme infections that medicaid will cover if you request them? my doctor doesnt know much about lyme
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- No. No. No.
99.9% of ID specialists are very strict adherents to the IDSA way of seeing lyme (and other tick-borne disease - TBD) diagnosis and treatment - and that is not at all adequate and it's most often even harmful to the patient.
No. No. No.
You need a doctor who is not just familiar but also well educated within the ILADS research / information / conference materials, etc.
That said, because insurance most often will not cover those doctors who actually can do their job in this regard, well, I know that it can be hard to obtain a proper doctor.
Talk with the leaders at every single one of the ILADS friendly lyme support groups within, oh, a hundred mile radius to you for suggestions of doctors who might fall into the range of lyme "friendly" who might be able to help in at least some way.
So, then, many with lyme/ TBD are left to do what they can on their own.
For a proper start to that approach, get all of the books (often lyme support groups will loan them out) and see the website on lyme and tick borne disease by very much LL master herbalist
How to find an ILADS educated LL professional in complementary fields (naturopathic, acupuncture, etc.)
Also includes article and book links by all kinds of LL authors - and information about herbal and nutritional supplements. -
[ 01-01-2019, 12:38 PM: Message edited by: Keebler ]
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- For anyone new to lyme or other tick-borne disease, these are among the top patient education, advocacy and public awareness organizations. What patients call a "LLMD" a lyme literate medical doctor and why that matters so much:
- Ideally, what you seek, though even if you don't have the means to see a "true" LLMD, study this a bit so you at least know how to compare a doctor's knowledge / training.
Even if a particular doctor might not be an actual member of ILADS, do they have this kind of knowledge / background / experience, etc. Do they keep up?
- a top patient education organization - see all the educational / informational tabs here for excellent detail. -
Posted by lightfoot (Member # 2536) on :
Keebler says it all. I've had a couple real downer experiences with ID docs. I went for other reasons but was read out for treating Lyme outside of their guidelines!!
Posted by kevin1983 (Member # 51489) on :
your absolutely correct i met with this infectious specliast yesterday and he seemed clueless about his facts regarding lyme and said you cant get it through a mosquito bite and just tics and had no idea what a LLMD meant but he did order a few co infection tests and a western blot from another lab that my medicaid will cover so well see what takes place then
Posted by Robin123 (Member # 9197) on :
I always suggest that people look at a list of symptoms for the infections and see whether you think you match them, because even good tests can miss an infection.
If you think you match infections, you can discuss here with people. A lot of people are even allergic to antibiotics and have to figure out what to do.
Many take Buhner herbs. You could study what Stephen Buhner says to do and join Buhner groups online. I recently bumped into someone who says he got himself better putting himself on Buhner herbs.