posted
Reading Big Lenny's post on infectious disease doc made me think about this. When I went to I.D. he gave me Elisa, it came back positive. Now I remember reading somewhere that you back a positive Elisa with a Western Blot. Why wouldn't the I.D. have done that? He didn't think my twitching, shooting pain, cognitive problems and my dog and neighbor being diagnoed with it were any evidence that I have lyme. Fine- but shouldn't he have automatically done WB with a positive Elisa?
Posts: 351 | From La Crosse, WI | Registered: Sep 2005
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caat
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 2321
posted
he should have just treated you with a pos elisa. Period.
Of course if you're thinking of legal aspects, then yes, he definitely should have also given a WB (if he didn't treat) before dropping that ball.
Posts: 1436 | From Humboldt county ca usa | Registered: Mar 2002
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groovy2
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6304
posted
Any test for lyme or coinfections are very inaccurate--
Tests should only be used to conferm disease - --not to rule out disease
I have had lyme and babs for 20 years- I had a perfict bullseye bruse a few weeks before I started getting sick-
I was tested a few months ago and all tests came back --Indertiminate--(Igenx)
LLMD knew to treat me anyways--
I have gotten much better--Jay--
Posts: 2999 | From Austin tx USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Originally posted by groovy2: Any test for lyme or coinfections are very inaccurate--
Tests should only be used to conferm disease - --not to rule out disease
I have had lyme and babs for 20 years- I had a perfict bullseye bruse a few weeks before I started getting sick-
I was tested a few months ago and all tests came back --Indertiminate--(Igenx)
LLMD knew to treat me anyways--
I have gotten much better--Jay--
I'd like to again state for the record: If you acquire the "bullseye" rash, NO FURTHER TESTING IS NECESSARY. The rash is pathologically UNIQUE and SPECIFIC to the BB pathogen. You've got the rash = You've got a Lyme infection..........period.
Posts: 294 | From nevada | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Hi Julie, All of our Lyme peers are correct. As I understand it, the Elisa was (is) used as the initial screen. It has a very high false positive (of course NO false enegatives???) rate. But absolutely your doc should have ordered a Western Blot on a + Elisa result. And that's a quote from my Lyme iliterate PCP. Best regards, Kenny
Posts: 76 | From South Eastern PA | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Kenny mentioned ELISA having (supposedly) lots of false positives but they never tell you there can be false negatives. Believe it or not, I have a letter, signed by the head of microbiology from one of the only two labs in the UK doing LD tests (UK National Health Service) which states clearly that ELISA can give a false negative for some patients. So it's official in the UK (or at least in Scotland). Pity he can't talk to the CDC!!
It describes the official procedure. But, of course, that still misses a lot of cases. This was documented in the recent article I posted on, done by Johns Hopkins researchers over a two year period.
Also, this two step process is not gospel to docs who actually want to diagnose lyme if it is there. A local ID doc will only treat if you are CDC positive on WB. He knows better, just trying to avoid the hot potato.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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