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What do people think about Clongen Labs? Had a Babesia and Bartonella test done there. Both negative. I have heard that it is rare when Lye patients do not have coinfections.
I have tested positive for Lyme using Igenex Labs.
Posts: 31 | From Boston, MA | Registered: Jan 2009
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posted
Not sure what kind of tests you had. Sometimes it makes a difference. One test will find something that another test does not.
When the now defunct Bowen Lab did blood smears to look for these organisms, it was always with the understanding that low level infection might not be caught. This scanning of blood smears was very labor intensive, costly for that reason, but had the strength that it was not species specific.
Antibody tests are species specific, and there are not tests for all species.
So, you have to know something about testing, more so than one lab or another.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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Did you have PCR testing? Those are notorious for giving false negatives -- unfortunately noone seems to have any statistics on this for the coinfections. Have read somewhere that a Lyme PCR test will be positive only 4 or 6% of the time when one actually has Lyme.
You could easily have some other coinfection instead of or in addition to the bart or babs -- many have mycoplasma for example.
Bea Seibert
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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I did have PCR testing from Clongen. I had no idea they were notorious for negative test results. I have heard that Igenex does a better job for Coinfections as well. Maybe I should try that?
Posts: 31 | From Boston, MA | Registered: Jan 2009
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posted
To clarify -- PCR tests are notorious for false negative test results -- all labs -- not just Clongen.
IGeneX offers antibody testing which Clongen does not. Those tests have limits as well. The biggest drawback with antibody tests is that they only test for a few species.
Testing is such a hit or miss prospect all around -- can get very expensive. If your doc will treat coinfections based on clinical diagnosis only then sometimes that is the best approach.
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