posted
I'm curious how many 'unpublished cases' from patients on this forum could refute the below paper just published by Wormser/Lantos.
The paper states that there is insufficient evidence in the literature that chronic coinfections exist.
If you have had *"CDC-positive diagnostic tests* for both Bart & Borrelia, or any of the 5 conditions listed below, please respond here.
*** Chronic coinfections in patients diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease: a systematic literature review. Lantos PM, Wormser GP. The American Journal of Medicine, pii: S0002-9343(14)00476-8. Online before print, 2014 Jun 11. Abstract Purpose
The controversial diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease is often given to patients with prolonged, medically unexplained physical symptoms. Many such patients are also treated for chronic co-infections with Babesia, Anaplasma, or Bartonella in the absence of typical presentations, objective clinical findings, or laboratory confirmation of active infection. We have undertaken a systematic review of the literature to evaluate several aspects of this practice.
Methods Five systematic literature searches were performed using Boolean operators and the PubMed search engine.
Results The literature searches did not demonstrate convincing evidence of 1) chronic anaplasmosis infection, 2) treatment responsive symptomatic chronic babesiosis in immunocompetent persons in the absence of fever, laboratory abnormalities and detectable parasitemia, 3) either geographically widespread or treatment responsive symptomatic chronic infection with Babesia duncani in the absence of fever, laboratory abnormalities and detectable parasitemia, 4) tick-borne transmission of Bartonella species, or 5) simultaneous Lyme disease and Bartonella infection.
Conclusions The medical literature does not support the diagnosis of chronic, atypical tick-borne coinfections in patients with chronic, nonspecific illnesses.
poppy
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5355
posted
Why bother? Facts have never been important to these authors.
If the journals are captives of the IDSA crowd, they are not going to publish anything that doesn't fit their dogma. Therefore, there won't be any papers in the journals to find in a meta-analysis. That was a very predictable outcome.
You wonder how these people can publish such rubbish with a straight face, and expect it to be believed. It personally enrages me that the medical literature is being polluted in this way. If you can't believe medical literature, because some of it is dishonest deliberately, then it casts doubt on all. Not a good outcome for anyone.
Posts: 2888 | From USA | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, facts are important to me, to all of us I'd hope. And I'd hope we can all stay open minded as to potential explanations for why tests are negative for people who are obviously sick with *something*... often times something antimicrobial-responsive.
I'd love an honest assessment of how many of us have strictly clinical diagnoses; even more importantly, I'm curious how many people are initially negative and then seroconvert to positive after treatment.
The direction of future publications often come from anecdotal clinical evidence.
A forum such as this can be an untapped database of anecdotal evidence.
I've been sick with very lyme/bart/babesia symptoms, but I personally do not have any "CDC positive" tests: + Labcorp lyme wb: IgM p41+, IgG p41+ + Stoneybrook lyme wb: IgM p41+, p34 IND, p93 IND, IgG p41+ + Galaxy culture neg + WN /SLE + but no paired titers, not recorded w/ public health + Fry lab biofilm/protozoa (unaccredited lab, theoretical organisms)
poppy
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5355
posted
Good luck assembling this info.
I personally had a positive lyme antigen test and one band short of enough to be CDC positive on western blot (negative ELISA) Lyme seen by microscopy. Also two positive tests for babesia. No clinical diagnosis here. And this testing was done nearly three years after the bite.
A later WB showed only band 41. So apparently I was either not making antibodies anymore or my immune system was confused by the shape shifting and couldn't keep up anymore.
Posts: 2888 | From USA | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I had a CDC positive IFA, equivocal ELISA, and IgM western blot. But I'd been sick for more than a month, so it doesn't count. Plus it was Igenex.
Posts: 27 | From North Carolina | Registered: Aug 2014
| IP: Logged |
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic