Elisa test for lyme disease
Common Questions and Answers about Elisa test for lyme disease
elisa-test
s reaction to the Lyme bacteria, the PCR test looks for DNA of the Lyme bacteria in your blood -- that is, a direct test, rather than an indirect test like W.blot/ELISA.
Docs who are not particularly up to date on Lyme do not 'believe' in the PCR test but do believe that W.blot/ELISA is fully accurate. If you need help finding a Lyme specialist who understands all this, let us know.
(If this is a duplicate message from me, just ignore ... I thought I had responded.)
I'm not medically trained, but I had Lyme several years ago, and your symptoms are quite similar to what mine were ... but Lyme is tricky, so not everyone has the same list of indicators.
Hi Goldie23
You are asking good questions --
I'm guessing FMS means fibromyalgia? MPS and DDD I don't know. Lyme patients are sometimes told they have fibromyalgia, a disease syndrome with no known cause or cure. We do know however that Lyme is caused by a specific bacterium and is treatable.
I was tested for lyme disease over a year ago by my family physician. Test results came back negative. I was reading an article in a magazine concerning symptoms of lyme disease and everything listed as symptoms I seem to have. I am trying to find a specialist in my area who is knowledgable in this area. Should I have another blood test done to see if things have changed?
My wife has had a swarm of medical issues this year dating back to January when she was diagnosed with melanoma. The melanoma was removed and a lymph node biopsy performed that showed the cancer had not spread. In July of this year she had a major root canal performed. Two weeks later she got a staff infection on her upper lip that took quite some time to treat. Shortly after that she noticed that she had swollen lymphnodes in her throat and numerous other symptoms.
hmm, I think you have a pretty good reason to start reading all you can about Lyme disease, btw there is no "s" in lyme disease.
Here's what I did:
go to lymenet.org
click on Flash Discussions
then Medical Questions it's a large site filled with lymies and they offer tons and tons of support and info. There's a link called Newbie Links on the Medical Section. I would also suggest you post this very question there.
other sites to visit..ILADS.org canlyme.
The IDSA guidelines use a 2-tier blood testing scheme for detecting Lyme. In the 1st step, the ELISA test is used. This is like a screening test. If (and only if) the ELISA is positive, the 2nd step is to do a Western blot test, which looks for certain antibodies in the blood that are (mostly) specific to Lyme disease. There are criteria for how many "bands" (each band is like a different antibody) must appear on the Western blot to fit the CDC definition of positive.
the ELISA and the Western blot. Doctors commonly order an ELISA first to screen for the disease and then confirm the disease with a Western blot. However, current ELISA tests are not sensitive enough for screening and may miss over half the true cases. Because of this, the best antibody test to use for diagnosis is the Western blot. ...
"Western Blot Test
"The read-out from the Western blot looks like a bar code.
Could someone please tell me if I could test positive for Lyme Disease one week and then I was started on doxycline and four weeks later my infectious disease doctor told me I tested negative and I must not have Lyme Disease.
Got tested for HIV and all other stds which came back negative. I did not have much energy all summer long. Then i started having tingling in my face, hands, and feet. Had no energy at all. My knees were sore and lower back was in constant pain.
Thats a difficult question. Elisa lyme test a is common test doctors use to diagnose Lyme. It test for the antibodies in your blood. As well as the Western blot test which is usually used after Elisa to confirm. Western blot is more accurate, but the accuracy rate among these types of test is about 40-60% depending on when you contracted the disease. The best way to rule out Lyme's is to see a LLMD doctor who specializes in Lyme and can run a specialized panel.
Welcome to MedHelp Lyme --
Yes, I would have more testing done, but it's not just the test that is important -- it's the doctor who is reading the test that is key.
There is a split in the medical community about how to diagnose Lyme and how to treat it. So-called mainstream docs rely almost entirely on the usual tests, which you probably had (called W.
If the UK physicians follow that same approach (as it sounds they may), then finding an ILADS physician is important, to test both for Lyme disease and for possible co-infections and then to know how best to treat any infections present. The variety of infections the tick carry often need different antibiotics for each one.
You want to know about Lyme disease then I suggest you go to a forum that discusses it.
you can have Lyme, but the test can show negative, since the ELISA/Wblot test can be fooled into not detecting the immune reaction.
By contrast, the newer and differently structured IGeneX test doesn't play hide-and-seek like ELISA/Wblot does: instead, IGeneX looks for Lyme genetic material (DNA) in your blood, which is a direct test and no fooling around playing hide-and-seek.
Any idea what the Augsburg Borrelia Center uses for tests? Just wondering....
It's got to be better than whatever the UK National Health is using. Just sayin.
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