My doc says that there are many strains of babesia out there that we have no tests for yet...He treats for babesia based on two things...symptoms consistent with babesia, OR if a patient doesn't improve after significant treatment for lyme. Babesia keeps us from being treated adequately for lyme somehow...
 

I'm not familiar with the fish test.

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oops!
Lymetutu

 

I would be concerned if you DID have typical babs symptoms...if your not gettig bettr you coudl have anohter coinfection like bartonella or erlichlia...babs symtoms are pretty definitive..i wouldn't keep testing..very rarely do you get a positive..

wait and see if you get symtoms and then treat...pretty simple..if no symptoms, don't treat..

what are the symptoms you are worried about that keep lingering..

Lisa
 

I am not at all sure which symptoms belong to which germ. Never had major night sweats, just once in quite a while, so I assumed the babs test I had was correct (negative for B. microti). Unfortunately, I had WA-1 and it took 4 years from the bite to get any treatment. Chronic symptoms are not the same as acute, and in my opinion, can be confused with lyme.

Maybe others have been more successful in separating the diseases by symptoms.
 

Their test is not looking for antibodies to specific strains (B. microti & WA-1). They look for the protozoa itself.

I didn't have typical symptoms for Babs, but was tested because Lyme treatment didn't take care of everything & a friend here had Babs with LD.

I never had sweats & chills - just spells of feeling too warm or too cool.
Had fatigue & some muscle pain.
No anemia or headaches.

Saw a noticeable difference after 4 months of treatment. (don't have time for details)

I believe there is probably a strain of Babesiosis in the South that is not detected on tests that check for antibodies to B. microti & WA-1.
 

Lyme PCR on blood is not a good test because the Lyme bacteria doesn't spend much time in the blood

Ehrlichia lives inside of white blood cells (the immune fighters) in peripheral blood so it's always in the bloodstream and a PCR has a good chance of detecting it

Babesia lives inside of circulating red blood cells, as does malaria (obligate intraerythrocytic parasite) and again, as with Ehrlichia, PCR should have a good chance of detecting it

All these tests, also antibody tests, are species specific so each species suspected must be tested for individually.

I become more interested in Bowen-perhaps useful info to be gained by giving them $250 and some of my blood . I plan to request my LLMD to order it.

janet
 

Bowen Research lab sees all of the babesia, not only the WA-1 and microti. You treat them all the same to cure them.

My husband had the highest count of lyme 1:128. Finally, after recently having an IV for 6 months, his count was cut in half. He now is on 3 bicillin shots a week with KETEK.

Your doctor gets the results faxed to him 24 hours after the lab receives your blood. About a week later, the doctor will received the pictures of the results. we borrow the pictures and make color copies of them.

Hope this helps.
 

so the sample sent in had no babs in the red blood cells...that's all.

I've never done bowen....heard great things and not so great things. heard everyone is positive with them, which makes me a little leary, but it's worth th e 250.00 if you need proof for insurance or whatever....
otherwise i'd go by symtoms...

anyone know anyone have a negative test with bowen? i'd be curious....does that 250 cover testign for everything? if so, then it's definately worth it! especially compared to igenex..

lisa
 

If the Babesia parasite load is only 0.5% and the rbc count is 3.6 million that means that 18,000 red blood cells per cubic millimeter are infected. Since peripheral blood is constantly all kept the same by the body I don't see how a sample could not have Babesia in it.

Sorry to belabor the point.

Janet
 

They are good in situations where there are multiple species and no way of knowing which one you have.

So, if you have Babesia microti, any good lyme lab can find it (with the usual caveats about particular methods and their significance). If you have some other kind, then Bowen good.

Keep in mind that when looking for actual critters under the microscope, a low level infection might not be caught even after scanning many many fields under the scope. This is true, no matter which lab you are talking about.

We all need to keep reminding ourselves that lab science is not infallible, not for much of anything, certainly not in tick borne diseases.
 

They do the buffy coat stain for the coinfections. They also test for Ecoli which is an added bonus. They are all testing a small amount of blood. Bowen stays on top of what they are doing. They use two samples on two slides to make sure they cover as much as possible.

Pictures are a thousand words. When you see the pictures of what is in your blood, it it creepy to know that is what is running through you.
 

Are there severeal choices of tests or the $250 cover all that they have. The tests has to do with concentrations.

Also if we got a CDC positive from Igenex several years ago what do you think would be good to double check, Igenex again or Bowen.

My question with Igenex, as you get better do the +++ decrease as you get better, do antibodies decrease in number? For example, if you had 10 positive bands with all +++ then as you get better would the bands stay at 10 just the plus signs + would go down in number from +++ to maye +.

Or would the actual number of bands decrease from 10 to say 6 positive bands.

I always wondered if your immune system was working, wouldn't it be to your advantage to have more positive bands meanng that your body was fighting the infection by building up antibodies?

Are the antibodies good or bad??
When you get lyme doesn't the tic actually infect you with all the "bands" meaning that you have the disease even if only a few bands show up.

Would someone that had 10 +++ bands for lyme be healthier and able to fight off the illness as compared to someone that had 3 positive bands with ++.
What actualy do the +++ mean after the bands at Igenex.

I need to have my daughter retested and would like to get the most bang for my buck since this is coming out of my pocket, please advise.

She has been CDC positive at Igenex and has never been tested at Bowen. She has been under oral treatment for 2 years.

She is being withdrawn from a SSRI so many of the symptoms of tapering Lexapro are the exact same as lyme symptoms.

SSRI withdrawal symptoms are stomach pain
headache
muscle aches
insomia
sweats/chills
confusion
nightmares
weight gain
and the list goes on to almost duplicate lyme symptoms.

How does one know which is which? That is why I am testing to try and determine that the lyme is not getting worse.

Any information or experience.

aunty
 

Check out this website, with particular
regard to Babesia and the types of testing:
http://www.canlyme.com/coinf.html

Di