Positive CD57+

Hi and welcome to our forum,
Sorry you are having Lyme symptoms. While you wait for others to respond you could do a search for older posts similar to your question.
There may be some information there.

We also encourage you to read our" New to Lyme" start here thread at the top of the page. It has useful information on Lyme, Testing, symptoms and more.

Take care and others should be along soon.

Low CD57 levels are not a positive for lyme. Many things can cause it to be lowered. It should not be used as a diagnosis. If you tested negative, there's a good chance you don't have lyme.

I do have this second immunologist Drs mind going though.

Amazingly, he listened to my lyme story with a very open mind for a specialist in conventional medicine. Im not the first "lymie" he met there either with low immune function.

Siri - Sorry ! I should have welcomed you to our community!

We encourage our new members to read through the information contained in the thread that sits at the top of the page: “New to Lyme?... Start Here!”
It has a lot of useful information.

Siri said...
Thank you everyone and astroman your post was perfect for me! In fact I had recurrent ear infections as a child?! My symptoms are chronic fatigue, arthritic like pains in knee and fingers, headaches, neck and shoulder pain. Takes me longer to recover from a cold, recurrent candida.....
Perhaps I will seek out an immunologist and take time off work to rest and build my immune system.
Don’t remember getting a tick bite although I was in Finland in 2011 on holidays and cycle to beach in shorts through woodland daily?!
Problem is if I see Lyme doctor he will treat me for lyme and put me on antibiotics for three months. I then won’t know I have Lyme until the CD57 marker rises ??! A lot of drugs to reveal the diagnosis:-0
I have a diagnosis of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. Other things were ruled out at this time?!
Thanks for all your help, I will keep reading about Lyme on this forum..it’s helpf!

When a LLMD starts to treat you...you should have a response...ie a herxheimer reaction (an increase in current symptoms and/or new symptoms showing up)....this is a sign that the antibiotics are killing off the bacteria.
...Not everyone herxes...but the majority does.
Generally the herxheimer reaction will be within a few weeks time...

Also - do you have the test results? Even if there is a negative...there may be some indications..ie bands that are positive.

If you could post your results - either type them out in a post...or upload them into a site like Photobucket or TinyPic.
Then paste a link to the photo in a post.

Sorry I forgot there aren’t bands with that test.
I would test for mycoplasma pneumonia and clamydia pneumonia Maybe also add Bartonella and Babesia testing.

Something is suppressing your cd57 and causing your symptoms.

And remember that testing is often not accurate.

If written several post on this late last summer.

From Immunologists I saw and self study. I was drilled with childhood health questions by the immunologists I've met, to figure out if I was born this way or no;, conclusion, no, I was not born that way.

https://primaryimmune.org/about-primary-immunodeficiencies

Your CD 57 is going up so no need to worry. Mine hardly even budged, so I measured more specific immune cells and found them low too.

CD57 is just a "zoomed out" test of much better tests available. Its very accurate in what it measures, but just the tip of the iceberg of immune cell health. Its not accurate to use it only for lyme. Further testing can "zoom in" more on immune cell health, what I did, and opened my PCP's eyes.

Thanks for feedback! I could be negative for lymes antibodies but be positive for chronic Lyme and my very low CD57 NK would support that?! Usually low in neuro lyme especially but headaches and brain fog might be enough symptoms for this?! Got tested in Armin labs but only for three. Going to wait to see Infectious Disease consultant who also treats Lyme before I get further testing as it’s so expensive and hard to know what tests to chose?! Am going to order that book Healing Lyme...Buhner. I read where Rawls was influenced by him so he must be good. I was impressed with Rawls article on herbs

Thanks Girlie,
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has had a low Cd57 + NK and it turned out to be something else-I can’t find any information on any other disease with low CD57. With chronic fatigue it’s CD56 that’s low. With MS/Lupus the CD57 is high...I have read on the forums that people have had low CD57 but did they all turn out as chronic Lyme. My body has given up...off work for a week:-( Dying to get to the bottom of it but am going to start taking herbs to commence treatment until the long wait to see a consultant!

"-I can’t find any information on any other disease with low CD57"

1)I found more than a few when I was researching this, even the vast arrays of autoimmune can do this (over 20 right there). Some elevate, some lower.

2)There are over 200 immunodeficient "sub" diseases that can show low T and B cells, (what cd57 is). This can just happen out of the blue mid-life too. I drilled my Dr with these questions in my search for answers.

The reason this info is hard to find is because its not understood enough even fir the best out there to see specific patterns.

CD57 are lymphocytes. If everyone on the planet with low end of range white blood cell counts tested immune cell types, they would find this happens more than is already known. They might have great levels of other immune cells that move the average up in the range, so it might look OK until you test more specifically. Further testing of only lymphocytes average levels can still be low and under range.

If your going to be concerned over cd57, do yourself a favor with further testing that I mentioned previously. CD57 is just an average and not specific enough to draw concrete conclusions.

In my opinion, Dr Strickter who made cd57 "famous" was way to vague!!!!! How can he make a valid claim/opinion with such a brad range test when there are more specific and precise tests available? Answer: You cant.

If every morning you outside garbage can was tipped over, you'd suspect and animal did it. But what one, racoon, bear, weasel? Look more closly to find. cd57 is just an "animal" . You can breakdown reg T cells from NK cells, but this test wont do that it looks at both, not just NK like so many UNINFORMED web sites say. They are wrong. You can have low cd57 with Great NK cells like I do. Reg T's can "pull" it down. My T's are very low.

Post Edited (astroman) : 11/19/2018 8:26:03 AM (GMT-7)

sandyfeet said...
Thanks for the tips Girlie and on the CBC. I thought things might be easier out your way, especially if your PCP is on board with ordering some tests (I got turned down by mine for even asking for free T3 and T4 when my thyroid TSH test was borderline so I'm not even going to try to get anything more exotic form her lol). I was delighted to find a ND in another province that offered access to the Dynacare labs that the doctors there use but alas naturopaths have a more restricted menu.

I'm still ok with self treating for now but it is so tempting to cross the border just for the testing.

I feel so blessed to have found my GP just prior to getting sick.

My husband switched over to her awhile back too.

She will do periodic FT3 and 4 when he asks - most docs won’t as they insist the TSH is enough.

It seems like it’s less restrictive here in BC because my LLND seemed to be able to write lab reqs for most things.