hopelessinmo said...
...I'll tell you almost everyone I know is on some sort of medication for something all of which could easily be lyme. But that conversation almost sounds like a conspiracy theory, so I'll stop there...
Also - That is NOT AT ALL "conspiracy theory". That's just simple math. When you add up the 340,000 Lyme cases that the CDC admits and factor in that this number represents only a fraction of the people who are:
a) have the specific manifestation of the microbe that is captured in the CDC reported cases, which meets the highly specific CDC surveillance criteria and omits most of the other cases and/or strains of Lyme;
b) are lucky enough to find an MD to get tested in the first place;
c) and are lucky enough to have an MD who knows to ignore the CDC's testing protocol and follows up a negative ELISA (most are negative) with a Western Blot test and most MDs don't do this;
d) and when they do get tested, the tests accurately identify Lyme infection only 50% of the time;
e) seeing an MD who knows which test to use or is able to properly interpret the WB bands since the testing guidelines are geared toward surveillance data, not diagnosis;
f) told that a negative test eliminates any possibility of Lyme so they stop looking at Lyme;
g) lucky enough to get tested but are told like most people that a borderline result is considered negative;
h) the few who are lucky enough to be dx properly will get only a short prophylactic abx tx;
i) and that the "official" numbers representing "successful" tx according to IDSA are grossly overinflated, misinterpreted;
j) and that most anyone developing sx beyond "successful tx" is told it's certainly not Lyme because chronic Lyme doesn't exist;
k) and that most of the entomological information that underpins the "exposure" guidelines that will determine if an MD will even consider testing you (minimal attachment of ticks and geographical areas for possible infected ticks and blah blah blah) are outdated, if not completely wrong and crafted from the same problematic surveillance criteria that superficially suppresses the actually cases of Lyme and certainly not relevant to today's widespread endemic throughout the country;
l) and that the public version of Lyme rejects that other vectors can and do carry the Lyme microbe besides deer ticks, as shown in studies;
m) and that animals are also shown to carry the Lyme and studies have suggested transmission to humans;
n) or that there are the other person-to-person modes of contact we discussed here (PRIMARILY IN UTERO...);
o) within the context of an entire system, that is sanctioned by our government, has been created to artificially suppress actual reported cases of Lyme, as well as avoid proper diagnosis and/or effective treatment...
p) and the compounded effect of undiagnosed, untreated people living symptomatic lives and infecting other people...
I mean, I could go on and on and on. A few years ago I actually put some numbers to those assumptions and came up with a possible 2 million new cases/yr which others have suggested is low-balled.
So, no, it's not at all conspiratorial to suggest that MOST people by now probably do have the Bb microbe in their bodies. This is a given, IMO. And it helps my anxiety about
"infecting others".
The REAL question is - let's better understand why some people remain healthy and others don't.
-p
Post Edited (Pirouette) : 10/7/2017 4:15:29 PM (GMT-6)