Does CD57 results always indicate chronic lyme?

I've gone through about a year and a half of lyme treatment. I started out on antibiotics (augmentin) for about 4 months, I was on plaquenil and nystatin for a couple months and then switched to herbals and have done that for over a year. Up until a few weeks ago I took my herbals religiously. My Lyme doc decided it was a good idea to pulse the BLT, I've been taking for several months. I read the articles about how it helps get rid of persister cells and she had a couple patients who saw positive results and I was all for it.

Unfortunately, I've also been dealing with thyroid issues which has been kicking my butt the last 6 months. I'm already explaining alot but to keep the story short-- At the same time she told me to pulse my blt, she switched me from levothyroxine to nature-throid ( a natural thyroid treatment vs the synthetic). I think it was too much for me to handle because I've been constantly tired ans switching to the NT really took it out of me. I started having strange symptoms again and I wasn't sure if it was the pulsing or the NT. SO I stopped the BLT and decided to focus on my thyroid.

My lastest thyroid test also included a CD57 panel from labcorp. I received two numbers back.

% CD8-/CD57+ Reference: 2.0-17.0 result: 2.7
Abs. CD8-/CD57+ Reference: 60-360 result: 54 Flagged as Low

I had no idea what this meant so I started researching and found that in lyme patients this is an indicator of our immune system. Ideally it should be around 160-200 but lower numbers like mine, indicate it could be chronic lyme. Not gonna lie, that scares me.

Does that ring true for most chronic lyme patients? Is there anything I can do to help my immune system response? Could this be because I stopped my lyme treatment? Any information will be helpful. Thanks!

I guess I'm technically on a break. I just started pulsing my herbal treatment when I decided to focus on my thyroid issues. So as of right now and for the past 2 weeks I have not taken my herbals. I would like to start again in this upcoming week.

I think they are finding other things can lower the CD57 too. Mine was 41 in August 2015 and then 59 in November 2015. Besides lyme, I am also dealing with heavy metals, EBV, HHV-6 and mycoplasma (those are the ones I know about) and I think those can all lower CD57 too. So it may be a combination of factors.

gkamom, CD57 shouldn't be a result more than a number.

Herbs are never meant to be pulsed. Herbs take a bit longer to get into the system (and they go body wide, not just in the blood stream), so by pulsing them the person is essentially never getting to a "full dose" because of all the breaks they keep taking.

Buhner, a Master Herbalist (which is who you should be listening to, not someone like me!! LOL!) explains how herbs are different: buhnerhealinglyme.com/herbs/herb-resistance/

The CD57 is NOT a reliable marker for chronic Lyme or anything else. Quite a few chronic Lyme patients have found that their CD57 results were low, but no one knows what all plays a part in making the CD 57 go down or up. There have been seriously ill Lyme patients with CD57 results up at very good levels and there have been some chronic Lyme patients that haven't been very compromised with symptoms and yet their CD57 results have been very low. So it's just one possible indicator, but it's hard to say what it really means.

What kind of symptoms are you having? Is it possible you still have tick-borne infections according to your symptoms? Do you have the same symptoms as when you were in treatment for Lyme?

This is one of the more comprehensive research studies I have come across that details the relationship between various diseases and NK CD57+.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856678/

As others have mentioned there are various diseases that effect the absolute count of NK CD57+, namely autoimmune diseases. It's interesting that the works of Stricker have not been followed up with any solid research. You would think LLMD's would have enough data points to say whether or not there is any fidelity to this test. IMO, NK CD57 levels are worth a closer look, but you need someone in the medical community with the time, interest, and money to research this.