Testing

[Jacquie802]

After reading this forum for the past few months and seeing how some ppl do infact have Lyme, I am curious as to how many people have been tested...I see my PCP and I am thinking about asking to be tested for Lyme. Is it a series of tests??? Also, if it is Lyme do you get better once treated??

I know I may infact not have Lyme, which is most likely since I got sick after having some sort of viral infection, but I am just curious after reading posts.

[nadine]

I have been tested several times and they keep insisting that I don't have it. Last test I was told by a nurse who called that she thought initial report was positive, but western blot was negative. Only two of the bands were positive?? I keep pushing this as my area is verrrrrrrrrry tic infested and one of my dogs is positive, and her numbers keep going up. It is not unusual for us to find 20+ tics on her at a time, with the Frontline. I have had several tics on me and two were deep in skin and I had to go in for removal as I did not get the whole thing out. I hear all kinds of things about testing not always being accurate. I may be seeing a rheumatologist and will ask them about this again.

[Guest malosp]

I have been tested several times and they keep insisting that I don't have it. Last test I was told by a nurse who called that she thought initial report was positive, but western blot was negative. Only two of the bands were positive?? I keep pushing this as my area is verrrrrrrrrry tic infested and one of my dogs is positive, and her numbers keep going up. It is not unusual for us to find 20+ tics on her at a time, with the Frontline. I have had several tics on me and two were deep in skin and I had to go in for removal as I did not get the whole thing out. I hear all kinds of things about testing not always being accurate. I may be seeing a rheumatologist and will ask them about this again.

Nadine, I am from NH too. And I got bitten by a tick that I thought was a wood tick and now I know either it wasn't a wood tick or wood ticks give lyme.

I hear conflicting stories about whether wood ticks give lyme or not. IN addition, I heard that there are lone star ticks on the East Coast. They do give lyme. Now I am beginning to wonder if what I thought was wood tick was indeed a lone star tick. Who knows. It is very controversial. I just know I tested negative in the beginning and I DO have lyme. It took 2 western blots to get a positive. Who knows why that is. If doctors are going to continue to use lab tests as their sole diagnosis, and not clinical presentation also, then the CDC better come up with better lab tests.

For some reason I kept thinking that there may be other people on POTS forum that have lyme. Why - because so many present with the same symptoms I did and the POTS and LYME symptoms are almost exactly the same. I took those symptoms off the respetive forums. One for POTS and the other from the lyme forum. It amazes me that the symptom lists are the same almost.

So if you have been bitten by a tick.....not everyone has a bulls eye rash...I didn't... that is why I didn't think I had it.

And I am sorry I went through 7 or 8 doctors before I was diagnosed. Unless that rheumatolgist knows his stuff he may not be able to help you. NH has reputable lyme literate doctors....it is not like in some states where there are quacks, because they do exist. Look one up and go to them.

So again not everyone on this site has lyme...but I think they may be a few. And it doesn't get better on its own.

[calypso]

I had one blood test for Lyme -- and it was negative. My husband, by coincidence, had Lyme disease and it only took 1 test for him to be diagnosed. Of course, his symptoms were very severe (he could barely move his arm and one of his knees, and he was having night sweats for a week).

Amy