Could this be Babesia ??? microscopy+ Bart content

babesia has never really been high up the list for me.

its almost never discussed in Europe

i have never had any severe sweats or fevers or "air hunger" so there has been nothing to suggest it was responsible for my symptoms - at least nothing that wasn't just as well explained by Bart and or Lyme.

however - one of the little projects on my list was to try to do some home blood smears stained with giemsa stain and looking for anything untoward in the blood

I don't have the proper equipment - but i had enough to do the basics - and an old biological microscope that is functional if a bit dilapidated - so i thought i would at least do a first rough attempt and see what i could see.

there were a few issues - the stain was only relatively faint and so the contrast is lower than it could be - and the microscope lamp was not as adjustable as i would like - the only camera i have is an iphone strapped to the eyepiece so the photos are not great - but crisp images of red blood cells via light microscopy s challenging at the best of times

but what i found surprised me

i was aware that bart would likely be to small to see - unless in v high numbers - which is rare -
-mycoplasma can be more numerous and i have seen others have successfully stained it with giemsa -
but what i found looks to be too big for mycoplasma -
circular or spherical in shape and and only one occupant per cell -
and all of similar size - so very much like Babesia - esp babesia microtii -
but there are many many species of babesia and Theileria and more being discovered -

i dont think they are artefacts - as they are all inside the red blood cells - and all the same size
and they are picking up the stain and showing a lilac color - which is what pyroplasts are supposed to do

i will link to pictures of some found in dogs in Portugal that look v similar

my giemsa stained smear at approx 400x
https://ibb.co/wrjrnpb

and another
https://ibb.co/1lyk2bp

a paper about a babesia microtii like organism in dogs in Portugal with a v similar image
https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1756-3305-4-50/figures/1/

any microscopists here ?

any thoughts ?

Post Edited (Garzie) : 11/26/2021 3:05:23 PM (GMT-7)

Garzie I forgot to ask, what kind of microscope does one buy to do this?

Thank you Garzie, I'm going to look into getting one with the details you provided.

let me know how it goes or if i can help Rainy

i will see if bluelyme is around - thanks for that

Thank you for the insight bluelyme.

I think I found the thread you're referring to: https://flash.lymenet.org/scripts/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/1/120458

Question for you bluelyme, when you say "its not much per screen" what do you mean by that?
Do you mean more of the blood cells should have been infected to confirm babesia?
Sorry I'm really new to the microscopy thing.

Garzie I posted a broken link to the lymenet forum, I fixed it but it only works if you copy and paste it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mxadpgrzz8e

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wosocpzlyzq

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bvzu2y15j0w

Thank you bluelyme, that's really helpful!
Hope you're doing well!

that quite a cocktail! to reiterate even if its babesia canis or ducanii or toxoplasmosis, it is protected while in the cell . only vulnerable while the rbc is undergoing apoptosis. things like bee venom and h202 iv or silver may lyse many rbc's open faster ...but each cell is programmed to die at a set time which babs can affect also i believe.

yes most "lupus" patients have a gut protozoan that has gone systemic( giardia or the like) . which is why they prescribe hq for symptom mgmt...

Be interested to see those pictures Jason

from all my reading around the subject it it written that bartonella is extremely hard if not impossible to detect via normal light microscopy even with staining - they are just so darn small

were they like this with just a single approx 0.5um inclusion in each cell -

it would be great to be able to compare the pictures with yours from t-lab attributed to bart

JaSon2233 said...
I'll email them to you as well as his interpretation in his dictation about it.

that would be awesome - thanks very much Jason!

thanks for the links Rainy
seems my images were not too bad after all despite my heath-robinson equipment

there is some interesting stuff / videos on the microscopy thread on lymenet also - some crazy stuff being found in people blood

for anyone else following the thread - Jason's slides do indeed show what look to be the same type of small circular or spherical inclusions in RBC and Dr M says he sees them commonly in Bartonella positive patients - but does not rule out that they could be some other blood borne pathogen.

obviously - anything that transmitted bartonella may also have transmitted babesia - and that would also explain the presence of such signs in bart patients - so its not cut and dried

but the lack of other expected morphologies of babesia - is a factor that raises doubts - even if there appear to be either variants of babseia that have mostly ring shapes - or stages in development that are mostly ring shapes

perhaps its worth repeating the experiment in a week or so and see if anything different is visible....