CD 57 QUESTIONS

Hi KC1215-

Well, LLMDs have different perspectives about how valuable CD57 levels are. Sometimes they are quite helpful in dealing with insurance companies though!

Many LLMDs think baseline levels are important for evaluation progress - mine was originally 37 when I was VERY sill, a year after treatment (after crashing hard) they went up to 47, and a year after that I am doing much better and it's still one 53. So, it means very little for me. Others are the same. And others still have seen their CD57 levels increase quite a bit throughout treatment.

Here is an interesting article written by a group of MDs:
www.publichealthalert.org/role-of-c3a-and-c4a-complement-proteins-in-chronic-lyme-disease.html

One of the MDs tested CD57 levels in a few of his patients--here is an excerpt from the article:
"There may be large day to day variation in the CD57 level as I observed in a study looking at twice daily blood draws over 3 days for both Lyme patients and well patients. The level can increase or decrease as much as 50% within the same day. So the CD57 level can be a useful marker for some patients but it is not always reliable and consistent."

Hope this helps you feel a little better about your numbers, while I'm sure it's still pretty confusing. More importantly, how do you feel?

-p

My insurance considers this test "experimental" and unproven. Therefore the whole visit was denied.

astro -
Very unfortunate. I'm sure that will be a trend eventually.

KC1215 -

As you probably know, 2 months is "just getting started" in our lyme world. But you're way ahead of the game since you are working with a lyme specialist and you found this forum. ;)

Intermittent "herxing" is not uncommon and to be expected, as long as it's not every day and overwhelmingly bad. In many ways, it can confirm that the treatment is hitting the infection. If it's consistently bad and there's never a break, it might be an issue of treating too aggressively and/or not detoxing sufficiently at the same pace so that you can ensure the toxins that emerge from what you're killing exits the body.

The more you get into your treatment, the more you can usually discern what all the symptoms mean, and the more these cycles can often help provide information.

It might be helpful to try to track daily symptoms. Due to the cognitive problems I have had periods where I found it nearly impossible to keep track of how I was feeling or to keep track of my protocol. But when I can, it's incredibly helpful.

I started using a nifty chart one of our members made - customized it for myself. You can download it from the "New to Lyme?" thread.

Or you can create something a lot less detailed - something that helps you track how you're feeling and to train yourself to distinguish between specific symptoms. This was tough for me to do at first because I also couldn't read my body very well but it's pretty important with our treatment.

A Burrascano symptom list might help you get started:
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=3033860

Hope this is helpful - if not just keep asking questions.

-p