Does this indicate that I have only had Lyme a relatively short time? I have been really sick for about 2 years but have had mild symptoms for many many years.
Just looking for input, I realize no-one can know for sure.
Thanks
Posted by rosesisland2000 (Member # 2001) on :
Looks positive to me...IMO, it doesn't matter how long you've had LD, you just need to start to treat it.
Lyme Disease is a very complicated thing. But, you have positive bands and that cannot be wrong when diagnosing LD.
Positive bands = Lyme Disease
Posted by Kentucky Girl (Member # 8587) on :
anyone else with any opinions on time frame Iha ve been infected.
thanks, dani
Posted by david1097 (Member # 3662) on :
Looks pretty positive. Do you have any symptoms? (remember the clinical diagnosis goes BOTH ways)
Hard to tell how long ago. With CONVENTIONAL thinking it looks like fairly recently (several weeks time frame??) due to the stuff on both the IgG and IgM. But..... Lyme does not follow convention and the IgM will cycle on and off even with older infections where the IgG shold be dominant. So the IgM combined with all the stuff IgG looks like a longer time (at least several months????).
At least thats what I think.
Posted by Kentucky Girl (Member # 8587) on :
Thanks David,
I am trying to determine if I had it before having my children. My doc says 2 years or less and my kids are 2 &3. I have been pretty sick since after my 2 year old was born.
My doc says since I had mild symptoms for years before, it is possible that I have had it for a long time.
I hate the thought that I passed this along to my dear babies and I know I will have to get them tested reliably.
I guess I was hoping eveyone would say that there was no way I could have had it very long.
Thanks again
Posted by david1097 (Member # 3662) on :
You may have been asymptomatic and the added stress of childbirth allowed the disease to spread. Many infections (even fast growing ones) can become compartmentalized and reside in the body in a more or less silent state. This is seen by many animal breeders where an animal may be a "carrier" but show no overt signs of major infection.
If this subject now gets stressed and the immunue system function is reduced due to injury or another infection (even a vacine) or anything else that reduces the bodies ability to fight infection, the compartmentalized infection being opertunistic spreads and causes more symptoms.
Why don't you have your children tested? even if they show no symptoms it would give you piece of mind or it would give you a headstart before any problems show up. I recognize that the tests are falible but testing is better than nothing and if it does show positive with no symptoms you can alway test... say in 6 months to see what if anything is happening. If you get 2 or more negatives (and they should be all negative except for maybe 41 Kda after multple tests) then you can assume with a high degree of certainty that this is not a problem. If however something shows up but is inconclusive I wold go in a 6 month to 1 year test program to watch the situation. Also remember that the positive test without symtpms is NOT considered a confirmed case... The tests are not that good.
There is also some evidence that many people have been exposed to Lyme but the doses are so small that while they show antibodies in the WB, they never get sick from it. We are still learning about this emerging disease and even the experts don't really understand the full exptend or how the diseas works.