posted
I have a good question. I saw a neurologist yesterday who flat out tells me I don't have lyme, even though I am positive on the IGM Western Blot test. However, since my only symptoms are visual, I must not have lyme according to her.
Anyway, is it possible to have been exposed to lyme and for whatever reason, your body fought it off and you got no symptoms? Then you were just left with the lyme anti-bodies that show up on the IGM?
If so, how likely may this be? Could it be that many, many of us have the antibodies, and that only those of us on this forum are the ones's whose immune systems can't handle it?
Bottom line, is it possible to completely fight off lyme naturally and have no symptoms, and be left with the anti-bodies so you would show up on the IGM? Has this been proven?
Posts: 33 | From Portsmouth, VA | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I am anxious for someone to reply. I have all the symptoms (well except testicular pain---but I am a woman) I tested positive for only the Western BLOT IGM 41, 23 and 39.
Anxious to see someone explain...
Posts: 347 | From WV | Registered: Jan 2007
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sixgoofykids
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
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posted
I have had Lyme since 1972-1975. Other than some fatigue in high school, I never had any symptoms until 1982.
In 1982 I had a severe stress and became so fatigued that I only got out of bed to go to class. My roommate took me to the ER and the duck there told me not to drink so much. I guess he figured I was an over-partying college student.
I spent that summer exercising and eating right (because I was at home). I also rested a lot because I couldn't find a summer job (a lot different than today!!). By the time school started in the fall, I was fine.
I had another flare-up in 1986, and one in 1991. In 1991, I went on the anti-candida diet, did a rotation diet to find out food allergies, and had my amalgams removed. After several months, I got better again.
I was very into health food and eating to detox well. I was so healthy people would ask how I had so much energy.
In 2003, I had another big stressor cause a flare-up. I've been sick since then and only in December found out that it was Lyme Disease. I had 7 positive Igg bands and 2 indeterminate Igm bands.
I just couldn't shake it this time. I've been on 2 tsp. Mepron twice daily, 2 Doxy twice daily, artemesia, Biaxin, and Nystatin for 25 days.
So far it's just making me feel better! I was a little more tired than usual last weekend, but nothing bad. I think my body is pretty good at detoxing, but I guess we'll see if I have herxes later.
I think in some cases you can get rid of it naturally, but in others, we need the help of antibiotics. I also think the bacteria can be fought off by the immune system unless the immune system gets overwhelmed. I "carried" it for years before I had a health issue from it.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
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Truthfinder
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
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posted
Starrant,
My boyfriend is a prime example of someone with Lyme who has virtually no symptoms.
He has never had any kind of antibody test. He used the Bowen test a year ago which detects the L-form of the actual Borrelia b. Lyme bug. His test results were exactly like mine - the highest ``positive'' you can get.
I don't think the Bowen test is available any longer, and the lab that used it is in a state of flux and coming out with a new test. We all hope to hear something any day now on that.
The only symptoms my boyfriend has are occasional facial tics, occasional hand tremors, and some eye problems, like odd floaters and changing visual acuity. And all of these are periodic, not constant.
For many people, visual symptoms are the first to show up.
Unless you have had the Lyme vaccine at one time, I would consider a positive WB as an indication that you have Lyme.
Above all, get a second opinion from a doctor who treats Lyme on a regular basis. You may be one of the lucky ones that, with treatment, you never have to experience what most of us do. Otherwise, I think you are a time bomb waiting to go off when and if your immune system gets compromised for whatever reason. Just my humble opinion, of course.
Tracy
-------------------- Tracy .... Prayers for the Lyme Community - every day at 6 p.m. Pacific Time and 9 p.m. Eastern Time � just take a few moments to say a prayer wherever you are�. Posts: 2966 | From Colorado | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
I had only a hurt hip, and occasional head cloudiness(very mild)--still played sports, exercised, and lifted weights. Until I started job, in a building that had toxic mold.
It caused an explosive reaction. Got out of the building(after several months), started feeling better, found out I had Lyme... then started taking antibiotics which caused another explosive reaction. I don't think our bodies can 'fight it off', but may be able to suppress it better sometimes.
-------------------- Never walk through a cornfield backwards.
quote: My roommate took me to the ER and the duck there told me not to drink so much. I guess he figured I was an over-partying college student.
God I hate doctors. They always assume the patient is either a complete idiot, crazy, a drunkard, or whatever when faced with a problem they can't solve.
Why should they be ashamed to admit they don't know? Just admit that I don't know what is causing your fatigue but lets try to find out. The human brain is more complicated then the most complicated nuclear reactor or rocket engine by a long shot.
Comparing the human brain to a nuclear reactor is like comparing a nuclear reactor to a hammer in terms of complexity. WHY CAN'T DUCKS ADMIT AND GIVE US THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posts: 33 | From Portsmouth, VA | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote: Unless you have had the Lyme vaccine at one time
There is a vaccine to this horrible disease?! Oh well, the Clowns for Disease Control won't let us have it. Posts: 33 | From Portsmouth, VA | Registered: Sep 2006
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sixgoofykids
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 11141
posted
quote:Originally posted by Truthfinder: Above all, get a second opinion from a doctor who treats Lyme on a regular basis. You may be one of the lucky ones that, with treatment, you never have to experience what most of us do. Otherwise, I think you are a time bomb waiting to go off when and if your immune system gets compromised for whatever reason. Just my humble opinion, of course.
Tracy
I'm pretty new to this, but I thought that you couldn't completely eradicate the borrelia, that even after treatment, we can have a relapse.
If this is true, and you all will be able to tell me whether it is or not, then I wouldn't mess with treatment if I had no symptoms. I wouldn't want to stress my immune system with all the drugs.
My LLMD told me the objective was to get the borrelia population down, then build the immune system to keep it there. If your immune system is strong enough to keep it there, I wouldn't mess with it.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
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CaliforniaLyme
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 7136
posted
Yes, it has been shown time and again that plenty of people have Lyme and no symptoms they recognize as from it- you can do a search on pubmed and will find a hundred + abstracts addressing possible facotrs in this-
Asymptomatic Borrelia-seropositive individuals display the same incidence of Borrelia-specific interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma)-secreting cells in blood as patients with clinical Borrelia infection.
Ekerfelt C, Forsberg P, Svenvik M, Roberg M, Bergstrom S, Ernerudh J. Department of Neuroscience and Locomotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, University Hospital, Linkoping, Sweden.
Borrelia Lyme disease is a complex disorder that sometimes becomes chronic.
There are contradictory reports of experimental Borrelia infections regarding which type of T cell cytokine responses, i.e. Th1 or Th2, are needed to eradicate the Borrelia spirochaetes.
In human borreliosis a predominance of Borrelia-specific Th1-like responses has been shown. In this study, spontaneous, as well as Borrelia-specific, secretion of IFN-gamma (Th1) and IL-4 (Th2) in Borrelia-seropositive healthy asymptomatic individuals (n = 17) was investigated in peripheral blood by a sensitive ELISPOT assay, and compared with previously reported responses in patients with clinical Borrelia infection (n = 25).
The seropositive asymptomatic individuals displayed the same predominance of Borrelia-specific IFN-gamma-secreting cells as the patients with clinical Borrelia infection.
Interestingly, the proportion of spontaneously IL-4-secreting cells, reflecting the unstimulated in vivo secretion, was lower in the seropositive asymptomatic individuals compared with patients with chronic Borrelia infections (n = 13, P = 0.02), whereas no such difference was found compared with subacute Borrelia infections (n = 12).
These findings indicate that IFN-gamma secretion alone is not sufficient to eliminate Borrelia spirochaetes in humans, although IFN-gamma may still have a beneficial role in borreliosis acting in concert with other mechanisms.
PMID: 10193424
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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If you have Lyme then you have had it already since a long time and you will never be able to get completely rid of it anymore.
The best what a longtime Lymie can hope for is to become symptomless or having only few symptoms. If you really have Lyme and you start treatment then it might well be that the treatment could bring out far more symptoms than you have now. Treatment can make things worse.
If you are in bad health with lots of symptoms then I think you have no choice than to treat. But in your case I also wouldn't mess with it. Don't try to fix anything that works.
Try to avoid all stress in your life and you may be lucky and never get worse.
But of course I'm no prophet and no doctor - this is just my opinion and my experience.
All the best and take care,
Gabrielle
Posts: 767 | From Germany | Registered: Feb 2004
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Geneal
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posted
My husband only had fatique and some short term memory issues.
He was working out hard every day and was on a low carb diet, which always seemed to affect his memory.
He tested Elisa positive. Still awaiting an appt. w/LLMD and Igenex.
Started on doxy....big improvement in energy noted.
He was at no time as sick as I was with Lyme. I think part of that is he shows no signs of co-infections. I show signs of babs and bart.
He also spends 20-30 min in a sauna following a daily work out. Maybe that has kept the litter critters at bay.
Geneal
Posts: 6250 | From Louisiana | Registered: Oct 2006
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Truthfinder
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posted
This is one of the reasons I am not a big fan of antibody tests - for Lyme or anything else.
How do you tell if the antibody response means that your immune system is just doing its job, or if you have an infection that is out of control?
With tests that look for the ACTUAL ORGANISM, you get a better picture of whether the immune system is winning or losing.
``Treatment'' does not necessarily mean antibiotics. For an asymptomatic person, natural treatments to help fight microbes and build the immune system are very reasonable. That's what my boyfriend is doing.
Tracy
-------------------- Tracy .... Prayers for the Lyme Community - every day at 6 p.m. Pacific Time and 9 p.m. Eastern Time � just take a few moments to say a prayer wherever you are�. Posts: 2966 | From Colorado | Registered: Dec 2005
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sixgoofykids
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
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posted
Tracy, I was wondering if my Igg positive and Igm with two indeterminate bands means that I am fighting it pretty well on my own.
The thing is, I'm not functioning normally anymore, and haven't for a couple years now, so I need treatment. But my doc started me on all the meds at full dose from the beginning and it hasn't yet giving me a problem.
I work out and have a sauna. I think both have helped tremendously.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
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Truthfinder
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posted
Good question, six.
At least you have evidence that your immune system is responding to the bug.
One of the noted characteristics (in Europe) of some of the Lyme strains out there, like B. bissettii (which we have in some U.S. states), is ``a distinct lack of antibody response'' from the body. Well, how much good would an antibody test be for a strain like that?
Your doc was probably smart to hit it hard and knock the infection down as fast as possible, before you became more symptomatic.
Tracy
-------------------- Tracy .... Prayers for the Lyme Community - every day at 6 p.m. Pacific Time and 9 p.m. Eastern Time � just take a few moments to say a prayer wherever you are�. Posts: 2966 | From Colorado | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote: Unless you have had the Lyme vaccine at one time
There is a vaccine to this horrible disease?! Oh well, the Clowns for Disease Control won't let us have it.
They took it off the market because it GAVE lyme to several thousand people! [There were over 1,000 law suits over it.] Don't ever sign up for a Lyme vaccine!
If you had the vaccine, it will make certain bands show up.
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96239 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
My llmd treats untill symptoms are gone. Made hubby get tested for the heck of it.. My hubby had a cdc pos test IGG but w/o symptoms the llmd wouldn't treat...funny thing was that the duck freaked out and made him take 2 weeks of doxy. Go figure,
My llmd says that 12% of population in endemic areas will test positive so we should not be doing random screening tests...only test and treat, if you have symptoms.
-------------------- We are spiritual beings on a human journey...
sixgoofykids
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 11141
posted
quote:Originally posted by Truthfinder: Your doc was probably smart to hit it hard and knock the infection down as fast as possible, before you became more symptomatic.
Tracy
I am pretty symptomatic now ... that's why we hit it hard. For years I wasn't, but the past four years have been pretty rough.
I have most of the symptoms, but I'm pretty functional when I can overcome the fatigue. I spend a lot of time resting/sleeping.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
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shazdancer
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posted
Yes, you can test positive, and be positive, and have few or no symptoms.
If you have asymptomatic Lyme, don't get treatment for it. (Not my words, my LLMD's.)
You may become symptomatic in the future, or you may not. No one knows for sure.
But if you get weird symptoms in the future, remember that it may be Lyme disease.
Regards, Shaz
Posts: 1558 | From the Berkshires | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Thanks everyone, but what I am trying to get at is this: is it possible and/or proven that you could fist contact lyme sometime in the past,
then your own immune system utterly destroys and kills the lyme so it is no longer present in your system, however, you are then left with the antibodies which show up on the IGM test.
Similar to how you only get chicken pox once because you then have the antibodies in your blood forever.
Once you have the lyme anti-bodies, I am assumming you could have them forever, right?
This is the question I am asking, because I did come up positive on the IGM (I even had two plusses on one band), but I am seriouly doubting that I have lyme disease right now, as my only symptoms are visual which may be attributed to a complication of migraine aura instead.
Now the question is is the lyme still there but suppressed by my immune system, or was the lyme killed off in the past by my immune system, and either way, I am left with all the anti-bodies?
Posts: 33 | From Portsmouth, VA | Registered: Sep 2006
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sixgoofykids
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posted
IF that were true, and I don't think it is (my own opinion), I would think they would be Igg antibodies rather than Igm.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
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geniveve
Unregistered
posted
i have all the symptoms of lyme plus some. my husband has occasionally complained of dry eyes, muscle aches, sweating at night, but he attributes it to "old age".
he seems to deal with it just fine tho. exercises, vitamins, works full time plus his flying (he's a pilot).
he refuses to even consider lyme. but at some point, i wonder if he will become like me or just remain as he is. he's always been extremely healthy and i'm the one that has always had health issues.
personally, i'm with the group that says he's a walking time bomb....
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david1097
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posted
Is it possiblt to have lyme with no symptoms (ie positive and persistent antibodies). I think the overwhelming answer is yes if you believe what ILADS says.
Can your body fight it off? Likly for a while. The problem is that the damn thing modifies its self over time and eventually morphs into a form that cannot be fought by the body very easily. At that point it might just sit there or it might start to multpliy and start to cause objective symptoms. If there can be any inference made, it is known that mice cannot irradicate the bacteria without the use of antibiotics, one might reasonably assume that the same is true for humans.
Ilads goes on futher to explain that the degree of symtoms as well as the speed of disease progression are highly depednant on the strain and the initial bacterial loading.
A couple of other tidbits... There is another spirocete disease called letospirosis. It occurs in horses a in outbreaks (it is transmitted by water). What is intereting is that the bateria does not cause any symtoms whereas the DEAD bateria cause optic nerve problems. BAsically when the anti bodies or antibiotics attack the bacteria, it is the debree from the dead bacteria that cause the symptoms with the eyes (likey since some fo the fragments look like the tisue int he eye, trigering adn immunue response that attaks bit the eye and the fragement) This is apparently somewhat different than what happens with normal bacteria.
Another thing to consider is a circualtory problem in the brain. There are lots of possible causes, but "asymtomatic" Lyme can be one of them. Basically the veins in the brain (the very small ones)become inflamed and don't pass as much blood as they should with the result that certain areas of the brain are not workign as they should. A normal MRI will not show this but a quantitative volume averaged MRI angiogram will as will a SPECT profusion scan. The only problem with these scans is that it hard to figure out what they actually mean.
Finally IGM should NOT remain positive with an old Lyme infection... as far as I know. Take a look at the paper that Nick harris wrote ont he subject. in his references he has a lot of papers on the IgG and IgM response.
Hope that helps, at least a bit.
Posts: 1184 | From north america | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote: Finally IGM should NOT remain positive with an old Lyme infection... as far as I know. Take a look at the paper that Nick harris wrote ont he subject. in his references he has a lot of papers on the IgG and IgM response.
So, theoretically (sp?) if my body successfully killed off all the Lyme sometime in the past, I WOULD NOT HAVE a positive IGM??
So a positive IGM definetely means you do have the lyme bacteria in your system? It is just a question of whether or not it is suppressed or not? Whether you have symptoms or not.
You guys are all saying I do in fact have the little lyme bacteria in my system similar to how one may have HIV but not have AIDS yet?
So, basically, I can never donate blood ever and I have to be very careful with sex.
Well thanks everyone for timely response.
Posts: 33 | From Portsmouth, VA | Registered: Sep 2006
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On the Igenex Western Blot for Lyme, it says that positive reactions can also be caused by Herpes Simplex Virus, Herpes Complex Viris, Epstein-Barr Virus and Syphillis.
I don't know if this is true of other lab blot tests, and I don't know a lot about these tests, but my LLMD had me tested for all of these other things to make sure she is treating the right thing.
The other thing that comes to mind, is that it seems to me from my own history that Lyme has active and inactive periods. I know for sure that stress can set of a major flare up for me. Now it would be nice if I could just avoid stress, but life's not like that.
However I will never again invite my sister to come visit me and stay in my home!
Karen
Posts: 112 | From RI | Registered: Jan 2007
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david1097
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posted
In the classical case (the one that Drs not familiasr with Lyme) IgM means RECENT infection. IgM antibodies are the first to be activated when an infection occurs. IgM goes down as IgG goes up (also there are some other Ig. types that are specirfic to certain parts of the body -lungs, mucous membrane etc) IgG antibodies can stay active life long with some tyoes of infection (Lyme is not one of them though)
So with your Dr, There should no question on the meaning of the presence of IgM antibodies. It means recent infection PERIOD. In the case of Lyme, it is a bit different as IgM aniotbodies appear, then disappear (as normal) but then appear again in a cyclical fashion.
In any case, with IgM positive you are still by infected (or at least recently re-infected), that is unless the neuro is trying to convince you that the test was a false positive.
It may be that your bacterial load is not large enought to cause any other symptoms. I would closely watch for the appearance of cyclical (every 2 or 4 weeks) appearance of odd things like joint pain, headaches or even achne. Unfortunately if you are a woman, this 4 week cycle can get confused with the other 4 week cycle, but still you should not be gettign things like grabing joints, joint swelling etc. Just watch very closely.
I would also re-test in 6 months. With a positive IgM I would also go to see a good Lyme expereinced Dr. He/she might tell to you just wait but may also start you in some treatment. It is better to be on the safe side (Ie see a Lyme experienced dr) as once this bacteria becomes entrencted it is a bugger to get rid of.
Posts: 1184 | From north america | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
When you say IGM antibodies are an indication of recent exposure to lyme what time frame are we talking here? A few months to a year? So I guess I was only recently infected? I guess my visual snow, floaters, etc. that I have had for 9 years now are not the result of lyme disease.
Posts: 33 | From Portsmouth, VA | Registered: Sep 2006
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