posted
i read that a standard blood test would show a breakdown of the red blood cells when you have babs, is this true? i havent been tested for babs yet but dont seem to have any of the major symptons either... such as sweats, air hunger, etc. but it is scary to think if i have it and not treating it either? does everyone or even alot of people who have lyme also have babs???
Areneli
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6740
posted
We are talking about indirect evidences of Babesia. These can sometime help in diagnosis.
I am not a Bab specialist (I don't think I have it) but my reading of scientific papers suggests that infections with Babesia goes often with some abnormalities of iron in standard blood test. The abnormalities may depend on the stage of the disease. Iron changes may be a result of damaged erythrocytes as Babesia destroys red blood cell in a similar way as malaria and iron got shifted in the process. Also the avarage lifspan of red cells will be somehow shorter.
Perhaps it is worth to check iron and iron binding protein during your next blood test as well.
[This message has been edited by Areneli (edited 14 March 2005).]
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Aniek
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posted
Babs lives in red blood cells. But I haven't heard that you can tell in general blood count.
Babs is often a clinical diagnosis, without a positive test, because the tests are very limited in what strains they test for. There are also many other symptoms that you don't mention, including muscle pain with foot pain in particular.
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posted
Babs lives in the red blood cells and it's possible one might suspect it by looking at a blood smear (but doubtful). Trouble is, blood smears aren't performed manually anymore, so they're rarely looked at with the human eye.
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loverell
Unregistered
posted
dont you also get muscle and foot pain with lyme?????????
posted
Blood counts will usually be normal with both babesia and malaria, unless one is at death's door.
If someone actually bothers to take a microscope out of storage and look, this is what they would look like...
The picture is of a bad case, normally they would be scattered sparsely in a blood cell here and there.
There is a milder form of malaria that it is also possible to get in the southern US, despite denials from your Chamber of Commerce.
It looks similar in the ring form...
...But it also has some other form that babesia does not have...
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Aniek
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posted
quote:Originally posted by loverell: dont you also get muscle and foot pain with lyme?????????
Many of the symptoms do cross over. But my LLMD stressed that really bad foot pain is something she sees more with babs. For me, I can wake up and feel like I just worked a double shift as a waitress in high heels.
My LLMD also seems to think the burning muscle pain is more from babs than Lyme.
Posts: 4711 | From Washington, DC | Registered: Mar 2004
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bpeck
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posted
No- a normal blood panel would not pick up Babesia, even with a manual differential.
The blood smears to detect babesia (and malaria) have to be prepared and *stained* correctly specifically looking for Babesia.
The stain the technician uses for a manual differential (even though it's looking at red and white cells) isn't the correct stain to highlight a parasite.
Barb
PS .. a manual differential should pick up damaged or fragmented red blood cells though. But in my case - this was mis-diagnosed as an auto immune problem (when it WAS really due to Babs) so no one looked further.
[This message has been edited by bpeck (edited 15 March 2005).]
Areneli
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posted
From what I have read, only in early stage you will find babesia directly under the microscope.
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A typical CBC blood test may show you a count of your WBC and RBC, but will not show you how much are old and how much are new...Your bone marrow may be able to keep up with the destruction for now, but eventually poops out...and then you develop other problems...(anemia perhaps, found in people with Babesia)
I didn't test positive for Babesia, but responded to treatment...but years later, I am still struggling with weird anemia issues that I never had before.
You may want to ask your doc to run a Reticulcyte(sp?) count test and possibly a Coombs test (direct and indirect)...This is where they do a red blood cell count to see how many new vs how many old RBC you have...and if there are any antibodies attached to them.
These are blood tests not commonly run, but can check for uncommon forms of anemia...where it's not due to iron deficiency but rather from red blood cells being destroyed prematurely...
So many symptoms of Lyme/Babesia/Bartonella etc overlap...so if you don't have specific Babesia symptoms, it may be a non-issue...but sometimes, Babesia takes a back seat and symptoms don't show their ugly face until you have undergone a certain amount of Lyme treatments...
Perhaps research the term "acquired auto-immune hemolytic anemia" and see if the description fits what you are thinking of. There is no known cause for this developing, but is often seen in people with chronic disease, infections etc...
Kira
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