posted
How can this band be discounted on the Western Blot? It seems pretty clear from this study that both IGM and IGG antibodies to OspA are highly significant in both early and later stages.
Does anyone know how it was decided that band 31 shouldn't count?
I was investigating my 11 year old daughter's 31++++ IGM when I came upon this study. She has multiple joint involvement.
-------------------- I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. -Galileo Posts: 61 | From South Carolina | Registered: Oct 2007
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lymebytes
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 11830
posted
Are you talking about the standard WB at conventional labs? Because they don't consider Band 31 or 34. These bands were removed when a lyme vaccine was made and they have not been "put back in" the test since.
Igenex lab considers band 31 in their test outer surface protein A (OspA),specific for Bb
She was tested at Igenex and is Igenex positive, but I'm trying to figure out how the people who decided that 31 shouldn't count on the regular western blot came to that decision, and how people actually accepted the decision.
Our llmd says it is a no-brainer (sorry:) that she has Lyme, and I totally agree based on everything including the links you sent and, of course her symptoms.
Are they just saying that 31 isn't indicative of a recent infection? What was the rationale? Does it say anywhere that...Band 31 is not included because.....? That is what I am looking for.
I don't get it.
Thanks for trying to help me understand this.
Thank God we finally got to a llmd!
-------------------- I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. -Galileo Posts: 61 | From South Carolina | Registered: Oct 2007
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Michelle M
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7200
posted
The band is indeed VERY specific for lyme.
Most labs won't test for 31 and 34. OSTENSIBLY because you "might have" gotten the vaccine and therefore test positive even though you're really negative.
But the reason for continuing to leave it out??? So that fewer people will test positive. Less outcry from the public.
After all, how hard is it to simply ASK whether someone received Lymerix when testing? Right. Not hard.
However, the CDC refuses to put those bands back into the tests. After all, we don't want MORE people testing positive than we already have, do we?!!
Imagine the upheaval in the medical world if the people misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and half a dozen other mimic "conditions" suddenly found out they actually had lyme!! It wouldn't do at all. The medical industry would be turned on its ear.
It's part and parcel of the amusing CDC denialist strategy. Another cute part: They continue to insist on their backward, moronic website that you must have a positive ELISA first before getting a western blot done.
This party line continues despite ample evidence that the ELISA is falsely negative up to 75% of the time!!! Per a study by Johns Hopkins, for crying out loud.
In other words, it's OK with the CDC (and by default, Steere and all his friends) that MOST -- not some but MOST -- late stage lyme patients are routinely misdiagnosed because their stupid doctors refused to give them a western blot due to a negative ELISA.
It's kind of like saying, "We have a really good test for cancer we could give you. But we're not going to give it to you unless you first pass this ridiculously BAD test that misses most cancer cases!!! Ha ha ha!!"
But wait.
Let me tell you how I REALLY feel.
Michelle
Posts: 3193 | From Northern California | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
It is shocking and disheartening. How many other children like my 11 year old daughter are out there?
How many children with band 31 keeping them from being positive on a regular western blot will never make it to a llmd?
They could be crippled neurolymies by the time they are adults. Their futures will be forever changed by borrelia.
sad
-------------------- I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. -Galileo Posts: 61 | From South Carolina | Registered: Oct 2007
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Michelle M
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7200
posted
I also had 31+++, despite having a negative ELISA.
I got to listen to the world's most moronic neurologist tell me I had "MS." (Though my western blot was CDC positive.)
The CDC actually does not WANT people to learn whether they have lyme.
To cover their sorry selves, they pretend to rubber-stamp the "clinical diagnosis" aspect while blathering on out of the other side of their mouths about the necessity of the "two-step" testing procedure.
The CDC has almost no credibility.
Study after study comes out which would cause a supposedly concerned public health agency to sit up and take notice and make appropriate changes.
Instead, they pretending to be oblivious.
Most people I know think of the CDC as a giant, bloated governmental joke.
Fortunately, the truth has a voice, thanks to the web and places like LymeNet. It will not be ignored forever.
I'm glad you caught your child's lyme. Children make good recoveries with treatment! Hang in there.
Michelle
Posts: 3193 | From Northern California | Registered: Apr 2005
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