So, I am sure, are lots of other, more and less reputable folks.

Riversigner: I'll do a google search on techniques you mentioned to see what I can find.

If anyone else has heard of something similar, and/or a doc in this country that performs this test, please let me know, okay?

I'm not looking for myself but for someone who has had this test done and dx'd with Lyme from the result.

Just want to make sure the person peforming this test is okay and knows how to treat properly.

Thanks.

I didn't see anything specific to Lyme or Bb rather that people are trained to look at the effects (on cells, etc.) that indicate there is something wrong going on with the immune system, candida, etc.
http://www.bradfordresearchinst.org/pages/microscopy.html

1. a "doctor" coming to your home - when's the last time a true doctor came into your home!?!?!?!?.... no matter how sick you were!!?!?!?!?

2. letting someone into your home for something of this questionable test seems way to scarry..... is he "casing the joint?"

3. lyme tests are hard enough to get quality ones when you go to the reputable places - why waste it on a questionable one.

****If it sounds to good to be true - it probably is!!!!*****

If you reasearch darkfield and bradford long enough, you will find out it has been banned in several states.. because ND doctors were actually helping people.

So, the ND's call it live blood cell analysis. You'll get much further looking for that.

Bradford institute ( who developed bradford microscopy) is another place to look, they also have a practitioner list.

It only views your blood, and as we all know, lyme can hide any where it wants.

I have yet to find a spirochette in blood. I have found a totally unexpected case of Malaria, but no keets in the blood.

I did recover a few spirochettes digging arouns the perimeter of rashes, but that also took a huge amount of time. They are hard to spot.

Bradford has been unfortunately misused by a few unscrupulous naturopaths, hurting its reputation. It is a shame as it is a useful tool used right.

On one website I found that was pitching the equipment to practcioners, I found verbage describing why it was valuable to a prospective customer's practice to this effect:

'Understand that it has very little actual diagnostic value, but by showing showing it to your patients you will get then to immediately agree to any treatment regimen you are recommending'

Not the exact words but close.

Live blood under the microscope is never going to be healthy blood... it is in the process of dying... filling up with fibrinogen and turning into a clot. An unscrupulous person can use to to scare the willies out of someone.

Its a shame that kind of stuff goes on, because the Bradford and like equipment is a very valuable tool in the right hands and not being used to make a sales pitch.

Dark field microscopy is a possible way of diagnosis Lyme. It may not work in each and every case because for unknown reasons the bacteria are only sometimes present in blood in large quantities. So negative result will not exclude Lyme diagnosis. But hey, that is true to any other test for Lyme.

Also finding the familiar bacterial shape is not 100% positive finding as other bacteria may look the same. It will be however a strong indication towards Lyme diagnosis.

Dark field microscopy may be time consuming as the doc has to get though a lot of microscopic fields to find what he is looking for.

I believe that this way of diagnosis, should be used more often in patients who are febrile. If you are febrile (because of Lyme) chances are large that you have bacteria in your blood stream at the very moment and dark field microscopy can pick it up.

A fundamental flaw in the way we test is that we are only testing for some specific thing we have ordered a test for... and often the test only detects a specific strain of that. If nobody suspects something they will not test for it and will never find it.

We found one of the lesser forms of Malaria when we looked at out blood, just out of curiosity. Believe me, we would never have thought to test for that, and no lab work for other things would have picked it up the way things are done now.

In this case not even dark field was needed, just a simple stained dried smear viewed with a standard microscope. The parasites stain bright blue even inside the red blood cells.

Some of these obvious, treatable problems will never be found if nobody looks for the things they are not already expecting.