posted
I don't want to be a pain in the ***, but do you have a "normal person"'s analogous bloodwork, to see if the dots they are pointing at are not an artifact of the method, etc? Just a thought. Especially since there is a non FDA approved label attach, I would not blindly trust anythying.
Posts: 59 | From CA | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
Labs use all sorts of stains for different purposes, and I doubt many are FDA approved, since they are not medicines. Most are just simple chemicals.
Those look very real to me. A control would look just like the RBC's you see that don't have blue staining ring forms inside. And, of course the coccoid bacteria would simply be absent.
If you type BABESIA into Google Images you will see pictures similar to Jason's.
It's a simple test that any Dr's office in a third world country with Malaria can do.
Posts: 714 | From San Antonio TX | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Kelmo -- Hubby had a really severe allergic reaction to Mepron. Rash started on day 10 with a couple of hives and within a day or two his entire body was red with welts and he gained 10 pounds in fluid weight. Had a fever also I think -- hard to remember now.
Runcy... -- Hubby's photos are similar to those posted but he only has a moderate infection and not a severe one as Jason does -- obvious that there are less abnormal bloodcells.
The true test of whether the photos are real is if the person is symptomatic and then responds to treatment. I would trust a bloodslide over an antibody test any day of the week.
Bea Seibert
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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That is not a dumb question at all. 'Coccoid' just refers to the shape of the bacteria, meaning they are round or oval. That was how the lab report Jason posted referred to them. It is just scientific techno-babble.
Most of us would prefer to just call them little round bugs.
James
Posts: 714 | From San Antonio TX | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Just got an answer about the photos... when they do the smears from the blood of symptomatic people, they look similar to jasonsmith's photo... and after treatment, they don't have these things in the blood anymore. Hope that answers the question.
-------------------- When I lost my grip on Faith in the maze of illness, Hope gently clasped my hand and led on.
RuthRuth Posts: 478 | From California | Registered: Jan 2007
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kelmo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8797
posted
My daughter had her blood smear done after a year of bartonella treatment. The photo only showed three babesia in her blood.
She was on zith and rifampin at the time of the test.
However, since starting mepron, and heparin, she has had her BUTT KICKED. She hasn't been this sick in over a year.
Sick...I mean SICK. The babs must've been camping out somewhere.
posted
interesting thread; thanks for sharing jason! take care, and hope you get to feeling better now that you know what you are fighintg!!
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posted
I think I'm first going to concentrate on the Babesia and Bartonella. I think I'm going to follow Dr. B's treatment recommendation for Bartonella. I got it from one of those Lyme conference videos. I forget the website.
Ruth, where did you get your info from? The lab?
Posts: 310 | From TN | Registered: Jan 2007
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kelmo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
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posted
I ordered that DVD, as well, and wrote Dr. F.
We are out in the SW, and for some reason, he said levoquan(?) Cipro, wasn't helpful for the strains we have.
So, try it, if it doesn't work...try something else!
posted
Sorry, been feeling up/down and haven't checked in for over a week...
I asked the question when I was there to get tested.
The answer was: they see this stuff when people are sick and they don't see the stuff when people get well.
Encouraging words for me anyway.
Also mentioned that when the photos have been shown to doctors familiar with malaria, they are supportive of the infection interpretation. (Wish I could remember the actual quotes here, but it's the short term memory.)
-------------------- When I lost my grip on Faith in the maze of illness, Hope gently clasped my hand and led on.
RuthRuth Posts: 478 | From California | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by kelmo: I ordered that DVD, as well, and wrote Dr. F.
We are out in the SW, and for some reason, he said levoquan(?) Cipro, wasn't helpful for the strains we have.
So, try it, if it doesn't work...try something else!
Kelly
Which Bartonella strain does Dr. F. believe is in the south west?
I was thinking if we could get this thread a sticky for others to post their pictures of their blood test results as well. ???
Posts: 310 | From TN | Registered: Jan 2007
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posted
Interesting pics... I'm not an expert, but I'm uncertain how conclusive they are.
I started to seriously suspect that babesia might be a big part of my illness (if not the major part). I got so annoyed that I couldn't get anyone here (UK) to do a stained blood smear, that I bought an expensive microscope and learned to do them myself.
I got pale blue irregular-shaped inclusions (that were in sharp focus when the erythrocyte was sharp). Occasionally more than one to a cell. Also, some strange red dots in some cells.
See also pics on the LDA website, under "TBDs under the scope". Interesting... the babesia pics look just like mine!
1) Getting a good smear-fix-stain etc is critical. I got my first few a bit wrong and initially saw similar things to the pics you've posted in some areas of my smear. I discovered that, if something didn't quite go right (fix too long? smear not completely dry before fixing?), the lighter central area of the red blood cells could form a "ring" outline. I also got several areas in the smear where you'd get a little blue dot attached to the edge of the blood cell. When I learned to get the smears right, these went away. Most of the "ring forms" in that smear pic look too central within the cell to me... and as someone said, there's so many, if they were truly babesia, you'd probably be dead!
2) Focus is critical. Little dots of stain precipitate can appear as rings when out of focus. And they'll be out of focus when the blood cells are in focus. So when you spot something suspicious, you refocus and see if the suspicious ring becomes sharp (as a blue-black dot normally) at a different focus position. If this happens, the dot is not inside the cell, but on the outside somewhere. Of course, if you get the stain right, you don't get many dots of stain precipitate.
3) I wish these were colour pics... The colour of inclusions is crucial to figuring out what they are. Babesia apparently stains with pale blue cytoplasm, and often isn't circular, but more pear-shaped. Yes, you are also looking out for a small chromatin dot on the edge of the "ring"... which is supposed to be red, but to be honest, I've never seen a babesia pic where the dot is red.
I'm always keen to hear people's comments... I'm still learning, and will always have an open mind. But goddamn it, having found these things in my blood smears, I can't get anyone to even look at the pictures, so still can't get diagnosed :-( At the end of the day, all I want is to get well and get my life back, and UK specialists seem to be doing everything they can to *prevent* that happening!
Grr. Possibly so close to an answer, yet no closer to getting well.
Posts: 19 | From London | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
Well, that makes me dissapointed. I know he prepared the slide and it sat in the fridge for a week before the test was run.
I wish that one person here who had the test that came back normal would post a pic.
Posts: 310 | From TN | Registered: Jan 2007
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kelmo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8797
posted
I couldn't see babesia in the photos you posted. My daughter's blood smear was very "clumpy". She is really having a hypercoagulation problem.
But, in several cells, you can see the black organisms. Some aren't completely round and prolific like Jason's because she was on abx when the smear was done. They are more crescent shape.
However, her ANA titers had dropped to 1:116 with her bartonella treatment, then went back up to 1:640 at the start of babs treatment.
The last blood test showed another drop in the ANA to 1:160 after two months on mepron/zith.
As far as the question to the bartonella strain. It's an unknown and an educated guess on Dr. F's part. He has tried levoquan with some patients and it didn't do much for them. Either he wasn't doing it right, or we have different strains that come up from Mexico.
Rifampin/zith was a good combo for my daughter and she would like to go back on it after babs treatment just to make sure she knocked it down.
I'm going to be running the tests on me this week with Dr. F, as I have been having night seizures and neuro tests show microvascular degeneration but the neurologist said it was "normal". With my history of all the other viruses (EBV Parvo, double viral pneumonia), it's worth a check.
If I can figure out how to post my daughter's blood photo on here, I will.
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