Does a lyme infection show results on these very general blood tests? They show general inflamtion in the body. I do have arthritis symptoms and occasional heart irregularities.

I was spelling protein wrong in the search engine- I found it. Yep, lyme can increase results of both tests.

Lyme CAN increase levels on both these tests, but it doesn't always.

My CRP, sed rate, rheumatoid factor, ANA, homocysteine, and just about everything else they use to measure inflamation have always been normal. This is even though I have easily identifiable, even palpable inflamation.

There are lots of tests used to measure immune function. Many of them are expensive, and have to be sent to special labs. It all depends on what you are trying to look for.

Many of the ones I mentioned are first line tests when people present with pain and inflammation and fatigue. After that it gets more focused as to just what is going on.

Some labs do immune panels for people that have CFS like symptoms. But often many of these tests come back normal.

But to be honest I really don't want to climb the learning curve with the language and theory of those tests at the chemical molecular level- the way that stuff interacts is way over my head... too mathmatical. I'll wait & see- maybe the coin will land "heads" up. If not, I'll be persistant anyways, don't worry

Yahoo! Groups : marshallprotocol

The blood tests run measure the level of inflammation by a ratio.

What did your ESR show? A research scientist on the Marshall Protocol list wrote this about ESR, suggests that the ESR falls when an intracellular infection becomes severe:

"The absolute value of the sed rate is less important to me than the observation of a very high 1,25-D (or sIL2R) in conjunction with a low sed rate... The way that I see the autoimmune diseases progress is that a series of infections accumulate throughout life. At some point one or more of the species which have perfectly adapted to intracellular living infect the patient. At this point the Th1 cytokine cascade strengthens to the point which makes it possible for L-forms of some of the other less aggressive pathogens to also enter immune cell cytoplasms. At this point the immune system can no longer kill any more bacteria and so the ESR falls. There are now very few antibody/pathogen complexes in the blood stream."