Reading Big Lenny's post on infectious disease doc made me think about this. When I went to I.D. he gave me Elisa, it came back positive. Now I remember reading somewhere that you back a positive Elisa with a Western Blot. Why wouldn't the I.D. have done that? He didn't think my twitching, shooting pain, cognitive problems and my dog and neighbor being diagnoed with it were any evidence that I have lyme. Fine- but shouldn't he have automatically done WB with a positive Elisa?
Posted by Lisianthus (Member # 6631) on :
That is the usual procedure.
And yes he should have.
Posted by caat (Member # 2321) on :
he should have just treated you with a pos elisa. Period.
Of course if you're thinking of legal aspects, then yes, he definitely should have also given a WB (if he didn't treat) before dropping that ball.
Posted by groovy2 (Member # 6304) on :
Any test for lyme or coinfections are very inaccurate--
Tests should only be used to conferm disease - --not to rule out disease
I have had lyme and babs for 20 years- I had a perfict bullseye bruse a few weeks before I started getting sick-
I was tested a few months ago and all tests came back --Indertiminate--(Igenx)
LLMD knew to treat me anyways--
I have gotten much better--Jay--
Posted by welcome (Member # 7953) on :
quote:Originally posted by groovy2: Any test for lyme or coinfections are very inaccurate--
Tests should only be used to conferm disease - --not to rule out disease
I have had lyme and babs for 20 years- I had a perfict bullseye bruse a few weeks before I started getting sick-
I was tested a few months ago and all tests came back --Indertiminate--(Igenx)
LLMD knew to treat me anyways--
I have gotten much better--Jay--
I'd like to again state for the record: If you acquire the "bullseye" rash, NO FURTHER TESTING IS NECESSARY. The rash is pathologically UNIQUE and SPECIFIC to the BB pathogen. You've got the rash = You've got a Lyme infection..........period.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
Not true in EVERY case, but in MOST....ID ducks don't WANT to diagnose Lyme because then they would have to TREAT it.
Posted by bpeck (Member # 3235) on :
Maybe someone can repost this to Lenny (I didn't see his post).
They only need about 0.5 ml of serum to run an ELISA - most samples sent to labs contain about 3 ml of serum.
If the ELISA was positive - have the DOc call the lab back and run the Western Blots on the serum left over.
They just don't throw the extra serum out.- it's frozen and kept for several months or years (depending on the lab).
Barb
Posted by Kenny from PA (Member # 8007) on :
Hi Julie, All of our Lyme peers are correct. As I understand it, the Elisa was (is) used as the initial screen. It has a very high false positive (of course NO false enegatives???) rate. But absolutely your doc should have ordered a Western Blot on a + Elisa result. And that's a quote from my Lyme iliterate PCP. Best regards, Kenny
Posted by brodiemac (Member # 7232) on :
Kenny mentioned ELISA having (supposedly) lots of false positives but they never tell you there can be false negatives. Believe it or not, I have a letter, signed by the head of microbiology from one of the only two labs in the UK doing LD tests (UK National Health Service) which states clearly that ELISA can give a false negative for some patients. So it's official in the UK (or at least in Scotland). Pity he can't talk to the CDC!!
It describes the official procedure. But, of course, that still misses a lot of cases. This was documented in the recent article I posted on, done by Johns Hopkins researchers over a two year period.
Also, this two step process is not gospel to docs who actually want to diagnose lyme if it is there. A local ID doc will only treat if you are CDC positive on WB. He knows better, just trying to avoid the hot potato.