InitialConditions
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I am not aware of any!I also have an issue with M.E 'tests' and whether they are accurate.
EDIT: Except the Myhill mito tests, which were a load of nonsense.
I am not aware of any!I also have an issue with M.E 'tests' and whether they are accurate.
There are also the CellTrend tests for ME/CFS, POTS, long covid, small fiber neuropathy in Germany, which aren't really validated as far as I remember but sold to patients: https://www.celltrend.de/en/pots-cfs-me-sfn/
Yes, but these tests are used the same way by desperate patients to get a "confirmed" diagnosis. This is another lab that gets recommended to members in my group from time to time and some people see a positive result as a confirmation that thay have ME/CFS, POTS, SFN. I'm not sure this is wildly different from the dubious Lyme test story.Yes, but there are mixed findings about these autoantibodies in ME/CFS so these are likely next to useless to support a diagnosis.
"Auto-antibodies against the Beta-2 adrenergic receptor, auto-antibodies against the muscarinic cholinergic Receptor 3 (M3) and auto-antibodies against the muscarinic cholinergic Receptor 4 (M4) are elevated in a subset of 20-30% of all patients suffering from Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME)"
That's exactly my point! I don't think we can trust the tests—as has been shown—so its a very hard diagnosis to make, unless there is clear evidence of a bite / rash / acute infection—although I know these are not always presen
I had an embedded tick removed in the center of a bulls-eye. But I'd been infected long before that. That was almost 20 years ago. Since then I've tested positive on the 2T and the C6 and the MTTT - all FDA aprroved and darlings of the CDC. I've been tested at the NIH and Johns Hopkins and through all the best labs including Mayo and Stonybrook and Imugen and Immunetics. Some of these labs don't even exit anymore.How did you get your Lyme diagnosis?
That's exactly my point! I don't think we can trust the tests—as has been shown—so its a very hard diagnosis to make, unless there is clear evidence of a bite / rash / acute infection—although I know these are not always present.
How did you get your Lyme diagnosis?
My son was first diagnosed with giardia and then an acute but previously undetected case of Lyme using CDC's recommended test. (We are 10 miles from Lyme and ticks are everywhere). Shortly after that testing, he woke up one day to the full reality of ME. His most significant period of improvement was for antibiotic treatment of Lyme - overnight miracle - but it only lasted a few months. He also has had periods of improvement following ME treatments and of course pacing to avoid PEM is mandatory.
So does he have ME? Or Lyme? Or both? Or have these various pathogens mutually played havoc with his system and its now impossible to tease apart what symptoms and pathology came from the tick-borne pathogens, what from giardia, and what from the more recent SARS-CoV-2
Regarding the tests - AFAIK, patients are usually tested for Lyme but not all the coinfections that ticks can carry. So even if the Lyme test were perfectly sensitive and specific, the problem might be a tick borne pathogen not being evaluated.
This is still widely underappreciated. Fortunately, awareness is slowly gaining traction, as is the novel(!) concept that some of these pathogens can cause neurological problems via infecting the brain, including babesiosis. Th babs brain connection should have been on the map in a big way years ago. Why wasn't it?FAIK, patients are usually tested for Lyme but not all the coinfections that ticks can carry. So even if the Lyme test were perfectly sensitive and specific, the problem might be a tick borne pathogen not being evaluated.
I also have an issue with M.E 'tests' and whether they are accurate.
I feel it relies and based on the knowledge, experience of the physician and history records of the patient.
And moving into other areas quite quickly thanks to changing climateIf the problem of unreliable diagnosis leads to some scammers scamming, then an obvious solution to this would be to spend public health dollars/pounds on making your testing protocol and the actual technology of the test itself better.
But because in USA and UK the public bodies have decided to solve the whole problem by telling patients that they’re only imagining being ill or imagining their illnesses to be any infection at all, let alone one caused by, or potentially caused by tick borne nastiness. This isn’t rational because ticks are everywhere.
I’d never doubt your diagnosis @duncan …. But it has to said, I’ll certainly glower at you in a sickly manner, from a dark corner of this form, filled with all consuming envy over your shiny portfolio of medical professionals![]()
Can you, if you stick to FDA-approved? Although there are gougers for sure, I'm not clear on how large this specific problem is. Lyme patients aren't all rubes; people know how to research, and now more than ever before, they do.
Period. Here is the real problem. This is a two-sided coin. Show me a Lyme test that is commonly applied and reliably demonstrates current infection, or can readily disprove one. It doesn't exist.
Articles need to be balanced, especially if there is cause for concern all around.
Chronic Lyme covered by insurance companies?? Not usually. LLMDs typically don't take insurance. ME/CFS isn't usually covered either in my experience, but it is more frequently than chronic Lyme. Why? Little risk to ME/CFS clinicians associated with treating with long term abx. With chronic Lyme, physicians who treat with abx beyond 21 days or so can face hearings and even lose their license.
You'd think the moral and rational conclusion of someone who cares enough to write as vehemently as the author did would be that there should be more investment in good clinical centres and research into these diseases to ensure that better tests are developed.
Maybe I'm wrong but when I read it, it felt like the beliefs of the author were that it doesn't exist and all these people in the UK are just seeking tests that tell them what they want to hear from dodgy charlatans 'because/when they have CFS' (whatever he thinks it is).
Is anyone familiar with this gent and his background etc?
I don't know, but it sounds like the typical attitude of we don't know(for sure) yet, so it doesn't exist and we shouldn't pour resources into it. I think there is some funding behind lyme and co-infections research btw. Some wealthy donors putting in money. It seems to be the only way you get anywhere with anything. Have a sugar daddy.
I haven’t seen anything since to suggest his dangerous ignorance isn’t typical of alternative Lyme practitioners
Abstract
False-positive serology for Lyme disease was reported in patients with acute infectious mononucleosis. Here we describe 2 patients with early disseminated Lyme disease who were misdiagnosed with infectious mononucleosis based on false-positive tests for primary Epstein-Barr virus infection.