I was sent this reply...

And please note where they said Lyme can mimic many other "real illnesses"...

WHAT????

And check out the link they gave me to look up Lyme disease! DUCK CENTRAL!!!! Ahhhhhhhhh!!! And by the way.. how come the Lyme Disease Foundation is on there with the duck listings?? NOT GOOD!!!

And the last line of the reply... after you get tons of bad Lyme information from that site... they casually say...

"You are why we are here."

````````````````````````````````````````

Lyme disease is a serious bacterial infection caused by a tick bite and affects humans and animals.

Lyme disease can mimic many other real illnesses, such as arthritis, Alzheimer's, fibromyalgia, lupus, chronic fatigue, mononucleosis, multiple sclerosis, etc.

To learn more about lyme disease, please see the following:

Lyme Disease

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/lymedisease.html

We hope this information is of help to you. If you need further lupus information at anytime, there is a wealth of information and resources available on our web site.

You can call your local chapter (see the http://www.lupus.org/chapters/locator.html Chapter Locator section) or the Health Educator at the National office.

You are why we are here!

```````````````````````````````````````````

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much to do... sooooo little time!

I gotta write or make aphone call or 2 about this but cannot find the place on the website that you got this from.

thanks,
robi

Got Lyme?

HA!

The line was on an email I got.. posted above..

Here it is.. the second line down after my line ``````````````

"Lyme disease can mimic many other real illnesses, such as arthritis, Alzheimer's, fibromyalgia, lupus, chronic fatigue, mononucleosis, multiple sclerosis, etc."

Beverly... good to see you!!! Thanks for responding to the article. I saw that!

And while we are on the subject...someone I was talking to about lyme was talking about a friend who had been diagnosed with Lupus,

She said, "Well she really had Lupus - there

was proof since she had kidney damage..."

Of course we all know that tick borne illness

likes to eat kidneys for breakfast, lunch and

dinner...So my question is this...(I know,

get to the point!!!) How do they diagnose

Lupus - How do you get an official diagnosis?

Are there any absolutes with the diagnosis of

A Lupus diagnosis is in essence a last result. When every other possibility has been exhausted then Lupus is the probable cause. Most Md's cannot make a Lupus diagnosis. There are many tests they use for Lupus but Lyme sometimes causes many of them to be false positive for Lupus. A friend of mines niece was diagnosised as having Lupus. She found an LLMD and after the Lyme testing was positive she didn't have Lupus at all. But because of ANA tests false positive, blood and protein in her urine the docs said it was Lupus. They didn't even do a skin or kidney biopsy either. Before a diagnosis of Lupus I would certainly make sure it was Lupus with every tool I could if I was the doc. Especially if I had to tell it to an eight year old girl she had it. I really don't know the reasoning behind why Lyme is so taboo are the abx that much more than th e steriods for many of these autoimmune diseases? Maybe they are giving steriods to end the life of the poor bastards sooner. Here are some Lupus tests:

Antinuclear antibody (ANA) test
Anti-DNA antibody test
Anti-Sm antibody test
Anti-RNP antibody test
Anti-Ro (SSA) antibody test
Anti-La (SSB) antibody test
Skin biopsy
Kidney biopsy
Complete blood count
Urinalysis
Blood chemistries
Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)
Complement levels
Syphilis test
Anticardiolipin antibody test

Duke.. thanks for the explanation.

Are you there?