Posted 12/20/2008 3:01 AM (GMT 0)
hi all-
i have read on the internet that lyme's tests can forever come back negative if one was taking antibiotics while contracting lyme's disease?
i do not know if i have lyme's disease yet, however, everything else has been ruled out. i got suddenly sick at 23 years old after being perfectly healthy. all my symptoms fit in the lyme picture.
however, at the time that i suspect i could have gotten lyme's i was taking a low dose of doxy as an antimalarial agent. the last time i remember getting bitten by a tick was in africa, where it was embedded in my leg for about four days. it was a couple months after that that i became sick with all kinds of weird symptoms, which have persisted now for 2 years.
i was taking 100mg of doxy. my doc believes this would have been too small a dose to kill the bacteria.
so i am wondering if this would truly affect a lyme's test, even at this point, two years later? it was pretty immediately that i stopped the antibiotics that i became sick.
i am trying to decide if i should try to order the igenex test and have my PCP run it (who doesn't know anything about LD), or if i should go straight to a LLMD (which may be too expensive for me to pay out of pocket without insurance). if lymes is truly a clinical diagnosis, i feel super confidently i would have it. if it needs a positive test, that is where i am confused.
thoughts?