Re: feedback, please - WB etc

[Guest guest]

Western Blot for lyme is to detect specific host antibodies of the

types IgG and IgM.

I had a Quest WB too and it showed zero reactivity; my IGeneX WB was

equivocal... I guess I have borreliosis more likely than not.

You might be interested in the Bowen battery, its 200something USD

for tests for multiple tick-borne agents (see below) - they use

fluorescent antibody to detect borrelia itself directly in blood.

They are controversial (and not FDA or NHS approved) for numerous

reasons, including the fact that they are extremely successful at

detecting borrelia and have, compared to most, a radical view of the

proportions of the lyme epidemic. However a big sample of their

tests were backed up by cultures, with 100% success, by Lida

Mattman. Mattman is a vastly experienced microbiologist and scholar

and a tinge odd (certainly no worse than myself)... some of her

culture results in sarcoidosis failed to be duplicated by

technicians who said they were trained by her own lab (Sheldon Brown

et al), and ed. 3 of her book contains many remarkable micrographs

suggesting highly remarkable novel intracellular locations/densities

of borrelia, which would be unique breakthrus except that some are

not even addressed in the text at all! These things make me somewhat

uncomfortable with her work, grateful as I am for it, and vastly

interested in anything she has to say about anything. On the other

hand, I recently learned she proposed in the 60s that uveitis was

caused by L-form bacteria (which was proven c. 1990 to my total

satisfaction by Wirostko/ group). Damn was I impressed to

learn that.

Anyway, I definitely wouldnt mention Bowen to a conventional Dr,

most of them would probably think youre a nutcase... but ILADS

doctors know about it, tho not all use it. I'm not sure just what I

think of their stuff but certainly they might be able to give you

some good information to at least examine. They do direct

microscopic detection for certain tick-borne bacteria (not sure if

the sensitivity is as high as molecular methods) and for babesia

(again, sensitivity may not be as high as molecular tests, but it

has the advantage of being sensitive to multiple babesia species). I

have heard of them finding babesia when other labs failed, in one

case, tho perhaps this persons babesia had increased in the interval

(its populations can go up and down alot).

Look at Donta's papers " Tetracycline therapy for chronic lyme

disease " and " Macrolide therapy of chronic lyme disease " - both have

full text on the web somewhere - and youll see that when lyme dx is

based on simple symptom criteria (as Donta did it), the test

findings dont correlate with the outcome of the antibiotic therapies

he used. Thats why I dont even worry about my diagnosis so much, and

even tho my IGeneX borrelia WB is equivocal I havent bothered with

further testing, at least not so far. I am also equivocal for

Babesia microti so I went after that too.

<exiled2@y...> wrote:

> The list I posted is from the labwork order sheet, and I don't

know

> much more about these tests than that they are on the list. The

> blood draw was done at a Quest lab. So, I'm afraid the Lyme

results

> won't be worth anything, . OTOH, he mentioned that there are

> more than 300 species of Bb and we talked about Igenex testing,

and

> I thought yesterday that they were going to be sending the Lyme

> testing to them. But I don't see anything on the order sheet that

> indicates that, so today I'm thinking we may just be getting

another

> Quest WB (this will be her 3rd). I don't know the difference

> between the 2 tests listed, other than that one says Lyme WB and

the

> other says Lyme IgG/IgM. It's a good question to ask at the next

> appt.