Co-infections: Test reliability & How were you diagnosed?

I don't spend any $ on expensive yet unreliable lab tests. Save it for treatment. Most Lyme patients will also have babs and/or bart. Most LLMDs will treat for both with a challenge test and treat the symptoms.

I agree with tickbite. My LLMD did not test routinely for co infections unless the patient requested it (I did it, sigh). Co infection panels are in general, supposed to be less accurate then the lyme test so if a doctor doesn't push for it I wouldn't get it. If you believe you have a coinfection which lets be honest most of us do, you can always supplement antibiotics with herbs that hit the coinfections.

I think most doctors will treat coinfections though they may wait longer into treatment to do it regardless of whether or not you have a test done.

So, how do you all know for sure if you are treating the right co-infection? Do you just pay very close attention to one treatment at a time and which symptoms go away?

I realize that as open-minded as I think I am, and how I've embraced natural remedies all my life, my mind is having a hard time being open to co-infection "hunches" and treating them with herbs versus getting the tests, a diagnosis, and matching abx...

For example, my feet hurt for years and that seems to indicate Bartonella, but since on the doxycycline for Lyme alone the foot pain has gone away. Maybe the doxy also treated the bart...?

Any more input is greatly appreciated, particularly if you can recommend a lab that actually diagnosed your co-infections.

Thanks, as always!

Maui

I think it depends on the clinical diagnosis your LLMD can and is willing to make w/out testing—and what your insurance will cover, if you need coverage for treatment. The Babesia tests only tests for two strains and I'm not sure the Bart test is that much better. But there are PCR testing methodologies that I understand are more accurate but not without complication.

I had such a deep cross-section of symptoms my LLMD wanted to test me for everything and not knowing any better, I said OK. Luckily, insurance paid for part of it. My ELISA was negative, of course, then my LLMD "provoked" a better immune response by giving me olive leaf extract for a month and then my IGeneX was "CDC-positive" after that.

She also tested Babesia duncani and microti w/ LabCorp, which came up negative, yet most of my current symptoms are Babesia-related (let's say 40% of my symptoms are Babesia-related, and 30% are Bart and 30% are lyme so it's not a huge difference). She gave me a Fry labs test for Bart, which came up positive but she said it wasn't positive enough for the insurance co.

But she will only treat two infections simultaneously (and I couldn't handle more than that anyway) and said if I wanted to continue testing or if insurance company demanded it, we could retest down the road. We are working on supporting my immune system as well so hopefully by then, if I have to retest I will have better results with a more functioning immune system.

-p

The woman I spoke to on the phone today (the success story I posted about the marathon runner) said that ALL of her labs came back negative. Her LLMD treated her according to symptoms. When the malarone didn't work at all for babesia, she tried a different antimalarial that did work. Then they treated the Bart.

She just kept plugging away treating the symptoms until none were left. However it did take her 4 years.

I was diagnosed with confections from lab Corp and igenex.