I have a low cd 57 count (52)but have done several tests for lyme (Westernblots, elisas, Lymphocyte transformation tests) Lyme has always been negative. I read that low cd 57 counts only indicate lyme - not coinfections. What I have is chlamydia pneumoniae, Bartonella and heavily suspected babesia. Anyone know why my cd 57 counts are so low? Might it bee that I have seronegative lyme which didn t show up and maybee gets positive later when finished bart treatment?
Would be glad to hear some input.
Thanks in advance.
Posts: 188 | From Germany | Registered: Feb 2009
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adamm
Unregistered
posted
I've been told that only Lyme can cause a low CD57 count. Doesn't really matter though, IMO. Many with Lyme will have no serological abnormalities whatsoever, and you'd be a fool not to treat a TBI patient for it.
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Lyme is not the only thing that can cause a low CD57, 20-something percent of HIV patients also have a low CD57 count. This seems to suggest that other infections besides Lyme and HIV may have the potential to affect the CD57 count.
It is most closely associated with Lyme, but you can't be absolutely sure its Lyme based on the CD57 alone.
In your case, with a lyme coinfection present, it is almost certainly lyme.
Posts: 195 | From Manchester, CT | Registered: Jun 2008
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Alv
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posted
By the way My daughters CD 57 was low like yours and HER IGENEX was negative 2bands( and even the BIG DOCTOR MISSED IT based on igenex and her denial as she did not wanted to get treated -1 year later was tested by a doctor in EUROPE and was told she had it for very long and was just activated for a few months -due to the protozoa strain ( FRy BUG)).
Based on testing in USA ( msucle testing from a LLMD here found lyme and bart ) and in EUROPE SHE HAD lyme as well for very long .Treatment confirmed .
ALSO exstremely HIGH load of BART henselae and some babs STRAIN.
So forget about the test and TREAT them .
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METALLlC BLUE
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Member # 6628
posted
Likely a seronegative test result. Very likely.
-------------------- I am not a physician, so do your own research to confirm any ideas given and then speak with a health care provider you trust.
I have a low cd 57 count (52)but have done several tests for lyme (Westernblots, elisas, Lymphocyte transformation tests) Lyme has always been negative. I read that low cd 57 counts only indicate lyme - not coinfections. What I have is chlamydia pneumoniae, Bartonella and heavily suspected babesia. Anyone know why my cd 57 counts are so low? Might it bee that I have seronegative lyme which didn t show up and maybee gets positive later when finished bart treatment?
If you are treating Bartonella first anyway, might as well retest for Lyme and Babesia a few months into treatment. Treating one infection will activate your immune system (hopefully!) and often stir up any other infections...which ideally would result in your immune system making antibodies to the other infections.
I'm pretty sure the abx for chlamydia pneumoniae also hit Lyme, so you could also retest during that treatment.
I also think an important question is how likely is it for someone to have Bartonella and Babesia (2 very common Lyme co-infections) but not Lyme? I don't know the answer to that, but hopefully someone else who reads this will.
Posts: 408 | From California | Registered: Apr 2008
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quote: I have read medical studies where doctors say only lyme will cause it to be depressed, but then I read from other people on this site that other infections can lower the CD 57 count (although, no one has ever shown me an actual study that states this)
Here's the study demonstrating a significant portion of HIV patients have low CD57 count (but not as frequently as in Lyme).
18% of the AIDS patients had low CD57 counts.
Posts: 195 | From Manchester, CT | Registered: Jun 2008
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Alv
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posted
**********If you are treating Bartonella first anyway, might as well retest for Lyme and Babesia a few months into treatment. Treating one infection will activate your immune system (hopefully!) and often stir up any other infections...which ideally would result in your immune system making antibodies to the other infections.*****************
This is very true.I for instance have treated babs and BART without knowing that i was chasing them .I have taken HIGH dosages of ARTEMISIN long enough to reduce BABS and I have taken OLIVE LEAF EXSTRACT for more than 2 months and HIGH dosages of ENZYMES...
This all 3 were the keys to make my IGENEX comign back as positive.
Same with MY SON.I treated him with ARTEMISIN based on ND for cleaning the parasites...and was for a few months.
THE IGENEX for BABESIA CAME UP VERY high positive.
Ironicly we have had done nothing to chase bart and this one came negative.
AS for MY daughter I provoked her with HOMEPATHIC formula for BART as I was sure she had BART from her symtoms while LYME came bck negative from IGENEX and her CD 57 was very low. In a month HER bart came up VERY HIG POSITIVE.
Treat with herbs each of this infections...long enough and than test...
Artemisin from ZHANG for BABS
BANDEROL or HH capsules for BART or homepathic formula from DESBIO than TEst.
AND TAKE HIGH WOBENZYMES for a few weeks and TEST...do this ALL and test after you stop for all of these and when you test I AM SURE that you will get a POSITIVE test.
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Hoosiers51
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My guess is that if you levels are VERY low, like below 20, it's a good indication of Lyme.
Here's why:
In the study, the average HIV patient's score was 103, and the the average chronic Lyme patient pre-treatment was 30, and during treatment it was 66.
This is just based on statistics that I'm saying this.
Posts: 4590 | From Midwest | Registered: Jun 2008
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That's interesting and I hadn't noticed that, thanks hoosiers. My CD-57 before treatment was 36, pretty close to the average for chronic Lyme, and I was both IgM and IgG positive through Igenex. I have noticed that many people with chronic Lyme report CD57 counts below 40.
Posts: 195 | From Manchester, CT | Registered: Jun 2008
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'Kete-tracker
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If you have confirmed bart & "heavily suspected" babs (WHO suspects? Your PCP?), chances are REAL good you have Lyme there as well. It's highly unusual to not have been exposed to BB with multiple co-s present. But it's not impossible. Just very unlikely.
A low CD-57 [subset of white blood cells group] count is almost ALWAYS an indication of Lyme. However, a 52 isn't critically low... but certainly low enough to immediately address. You need to take twice daily TOA-free Cat's Claw capsules OR Samento tincture to help boost the #s.
Posts: 1233 | From Dover, NH | Registered: Sep 2008
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Yes the bart and Chlamydia pneumoniae is confirmed.
I suspect heavily babs, because I have the major babs symptoms from time to time (air hunger, drenching night sweats, dark urine, diarrhea,muscle pains, especially the large muscles when Itreat with tinidazole, diarrhea). I have always elevated MCV and MCH - might this be a sign for babs also?
I have done one babs test in germany and it was negative.
By the way I have an high IGE which drops to 1600 when I treat with tini . Before it was till 6000. (I don t have worms and treated empirically with ivermectin, albedazole and pratziquantel)
High IGE can bee due to protozoas or intracellular bacteria like q-fever as well. q-fever was also negative.
I had an positive Lymphocyte transformation test for lamblia. But I took enough Flagyl before. I heard there are metronidazole resistant lamblia strains. Wondering if anyone knows more?
The interesting thing is always when I took Tinidazole my IGE dropped significantly. But always rises when I stop tinidazole.
About Lyme and the cd 57 tests.I have done about 10 lyme tests in the past years. (Western blots, elisas)
They were all negative. Why should the test be false negative, but my tests for cpn and bart are positive?
I tested HIV also several times - negative as well.
But I know some viruses can cause low CD 57.
I have high ebv virus and enterovirus. Might the low cd 57 come from this viruses?
Refering to empirical lyme treatment. I have done the Wheldon protocoll for chlamydia pneumoniae for 8 month (02/08 - 10/08). Had to stop it due to cdiff.
Azithromycin 250 (on mo, we, fr) + Doxycycline 200 every day + flagyl for five days once in a month.
The question is if this protocoll was insufficient for lyme treatment ?
Where the dosages for lyme too low? Or would it have covered lyme also?
What helped me very good in the past was
1. Clindamycine (Major herx for 60 hours - then much better!!!!) Effect on babs and lyme??
2. Cipro stopped diarrhea for the time I was taking it - ( 4 years ago)
3. Flagyl - very good effects
I restarted my treatment after cured cdiff. in january 20 th this year for bart and cpn with rifampin and high dose zithromax (500 p.d.)
Wouldn t the high dose zithromax have covered lyme also?
I stopped rifampin after 12 weeks and am taking cipro 2x750 for bart and cpn at the moment. + Tini pulses.
I am thinking about adding clindamycin to the cipro bacause it helped good. (Don t worry about the cdiff - I have 30 pills of oral vanco left)
Might the clinda success be due to effect on babs? Anyone else had clinda success?
I think even clinda on its own has effect on babs - right?
Am i right to first adress the coinfections cpn and bart and possibly babesia before lyme can be treated?
I have the luck that I have three doctors who are willing to prescribe me everything to get better.
So my plan: treat bart and cpn cipro 2x750
adding clindamycin 3 x600 next week for lyme and babesia or other protozooa.
Taking clinda for some time and then dropping it for minocycline.
How long should I treat the bart ? (3month done now with rifa / Atzi)
Now high dose cipro. For another 2 month ?
Thank you all so much - this is a great forum with a lot of kind people.
Any feedback would be great.
Thanks a lot
Posts: 188 | From Germany | Registered: Feb 2009
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ukcarry
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I am being offered a CD-57 test here in UK 2 years into treatment [but many years after being infected] but I have read so many conflicting opinions about it that I am beginning to doubt its usefulness.
I have all 3 common co-infections as well as borrelia.
Some have reported that there seems to be little correlation between the CD-57 results and the severity of symptoms, both between different patients' results and one's own results at different stages.
If this is so, is there really any point in using it to monitor the success [or otherwise] of antibiotic treatment?
Additionally, since the results do not reflect coinfections, it must be hard to draw any firm conclusions about the stage of illness and the state of the immune system.
Does anyone think it would be worthwhile my taking this test? Any opinions welcome!
posted
Stefan... Like other said - elisas and westernblots are the tests which are based on our immune responce to the infection. As we know, this one can be very weak...
So, maybe you have any test in your country like this one: http://www.cbdna.pl/index.php/metody.html We have a great results with PCR Real Time here, in Poland. They look for DNA of the bacteria, not for your immune responce. Maybe you should try this one???
Best wishes. Geo.
-------------------- All the best... Marcin Posts: 8 | From Poland | Registered: Mar 2007
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gemofnj
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posted
Hi all,
I have been in remission since December 08. At my follow up in March, my CD 57 test was exactly the same number as it was early in treatment, a 45. This is seemingly very perplexing.
My LLMD felt that I should take TOA cats claw, 1 x a day for 3 months, as a preventative. (along with AG Immune Booster and other vitamin supplements)
So far, I am really ok with NO symptoms, despite my low CD 57 test.
I am keeping my fingers crossed as I feel back to normal !!! Has anyone else been successfully treated and still have a low CD 57?
Posts: 1127 | From atlantic city, nj | Registered: May 2008
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Keebler
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posted
-
You say you heavily suspect babesia. That rarely travels without borrelia.
Hoosiers51
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Member # 15759
posted
I am starting to doubt that babesia is "rare." Maybe babesia microti is (which, keep in mind, can cross react with other babesias in some testing), but babesia duncani and babesia canis have been found in the general healthy population.
I have read that they found b. duncani in something like 15% in America, and in Mexico, 30 or so % of people tested positive for b. canis. Sorry, too tired to look up these and post them here. The canis one I read from Dr. S who writes those books about babs and bart.
About the CD57, someone who went to that conference recently in Missouri (that Dr. F presented at) told me that at the conference, they said that EBV can cause the CD57 to go really HIGH. And apparently gamma strep can too. Hmmmmmmm......
My guess would be that if C. pneumonia can get into the cells, maybe it can cause low CD57 too. That is JUST A GUESS though.
Stefan, were any of your Western Blots from Igenex? Were any bands present at all? Which ones? Certain ones are very Lyme specific. (as far as we know)
I still think you should not stop suspecting Lyme, but keep your options open too.
Posts: 4590 | From Midwest | Registered: Jun 2008
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posted
@ Hoosiers51: No we don t have Igenex in germany. But I was tested in different labs.
The only band which showed up was p41.
I had a conversation about cd 57 with a very good lab. doctor who said that it might be possible that other intracellular bacteria like cpn can cause also low cd 57 results. Also maybe enterovirus.
But anyway I think if I continue to adress the bart first and then give babs treatment a try and afterwards adress cpn and lyme with azithromycin and minocycline might be a good idea.
Is it right that coinfections should be treated before lyme treatment? Like first bart and babs and then lyme?
Thanks alot to all.
Posts: 188 | From Germany | Registered: Feb 2009
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