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Advanced Labs: what your experience been with the culture test?

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Posted 12/24/2012 7:16 PM (GMT 0)
Hi all - well last week I got a positive Lyme diagnose from a non-LLMD doc. I'm actually impressed even thought to run the test! My results: igm bands 41 and 23 and igg bands 41 and 58. The test also showed a new EBV infection and a new CMV infection. I'm going to a LLMD this week because the awesome people on this forum wrote me with names of good docs (so grateful for your help!) and one of the docs had a cancellation and could see me. I'm wondering about the Advanced Labs test - and your experiences? I got sick this summer with extreme fatigue and wierd adrenal symtoms - no nuerological symtoms yet. 12 years ago I was in Santa Cruz - had never heard of Lyme - I was camping and got bit with at least a dozen ticks:( - I was put on antibiotics for something completely unrelated within the next couple days after that. So I'm wondering if the antobiotics caught it back then, and the bands showed up now because of that exposure all those years ago and I don't have an active infection - which is why I'm wondering about the culture test. Has anyone else had a doc who could figure out if a infection was active or old? do igm and igg markers ever go away when youre well? Thanks, happy holidays, and I wish health for all of us in 2013.
Julie

Post Edited (Julie61012) : 12/24/2012 1:42:05 PM (GMT-7)

Posted 12/24/2012 7:41 PM (GMT 0)
Well I think I would do the culture test only if I had a completely negative western blot. It's an expensive test and in my opinion, if you have the symptoms, known exposure, and lyme-specific bands like 23 showing up there is a pretty good chance at least some of the symptoms are from Lyme. Do you have other diagnoses as well?

For me, I had a positive Igenex test and textbook Lyme and co-infection symptoms that came very suddenly after a known tick bite, so I was 100% confident I was treating the right thing. I would consider the test though if I had a negative western blot in order to substantiate a diagnosis. However, even the live culture can potentially produce false negatives (although there is virtually no risk of false positives).
Posted 12/24/2012 7:46 PM (GMT 0)
I would agree with Summer3 - no need to spend the money on another test when you have the results you have and the symptoms. You have Lyme - and possibly other tick-borne infections as well. Save your money for treatment.

There isn't any left overs that a test will react to - although there is still some debate about it if you have had the Lymerix vaccine.
Posted 12/24/2012 8:39 PM (GMT 0)
I don't have another diagnose - the docs were stumped all summer by my heart pounding, weird blood sugar and adrenal symptoms and extreme fatigue. The weird thing is it has gotten better - I'm not perfect - but I'm 80 percent better. I don't know enough about Lyme to know if it comes and goes. No flu symptoms or headache. The Lyme test was done a lab here called PPL - I assume the LLMD will have me do igenex for Lyme and the codiseases. So it must be a new infection - right.? Could I have been well all these years? So many questions.....

Post Edited (Julie61012) : 12/24/2012 1:42:21 PM (GMT-7)

Posted 12/24/2012 9:50 PM (GMT 0)
I know the feeling Julie, its been years of wrong diagnosis. I would have done the blood culture on top of the western blot just to know that I know, but I was on ABX already so I couldnt.
I have almost all the symtoms you could have of lyme, but it didnt start out a clear cut case. it was a long time after the original test that I finally agreed with the diagnosis.
Posted 12/25/2012 3:56 PM (GMT 0)
Yes! The symptoms of Lyme (and the other diseases that commonly come with it) can most definitely come and go! The palpatations, adrenal symptoms and weird blood sugar things are all common symptoms of Lyme, so the fact that they had non-Lyme literate doc's stumped is quite typical. To make matters worse, it's rare for two people to have the same exact symptoms and there are so many that they can present in so many different ways.

It could be from a new infection(s), or an old one that has flared back up. Lyme hides in the body until just the right circumstances (too much stress on the body) happens, then it comes out and we start having symptoms again. This is why we must continue to take extra good care of ourselves, even after we have pushed this disease into full remission!

Keep on asking those questions! We are here to help answer all the ones we can, and then ask your LLMD those and the ones that we can't help with! Knowledge is power with these diseases, and we can never know too much about them!
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