Loski
i had meant to comment on the test you linked
its a gimesa blood smear - which can detect Babesia - but is not generally thought to be very good at doing so in chronic patients
reason is as follows - levels of parasitaemia in acute cases is typically 10-50% ( so 1in 10 to 1 in 2 red blood cells infected ) - and ca be higher if spleen is missing or patient immunocompromised in some other way( AIDS, Organ Transplant etc)
but this often drops to levels as low as 1 infected red blood cell per 1000 in chronic patients ( 0.1% parasitaemia - and many commercial labs will not spot this as its typically a lab technician looking at a single slide for 15mins - often anticipating the acute presentation.
with my bartonella slides - i would typically look at 10 or more slides without finding anything definitive - before finding a large clump of bartonella infected cells in the 11th or 12th slide - this would take many hours - commercial labs just don't have the time for this - or teh cost would be prohibitive.
people may have the idea that if you are sick and its something that lives in the blood - then a quick look at your blood will reveal what it is - but it just doesn't work that way - especially in chronic disease.
see the link in my signature for more info on this and my own journey into microscopy for diagnosis
it really worked for me - but as you will see from that thread - there was a learning curve - and some effort involved
the upside is once you have the scope an the dye etc you can do the smears whoever you want - and some use that as a means of tracking treatment progress
the test linked above is also a little unusual as it gives the following as the required samples
Preferred Specimen(s)
At least 2 thick and 2 thin smears prepared from capillary source (finger) and
1 whole blood EDTA (lavender-top) tube
this implies either the patient or the phlebotomist needs to make the blood smears
that's a bit unusual - there is some skill required to make a good smear - and i am not sure if its a routine thing for most places that do blood draws
worth checking if you go this way
personally if i was doing a commercial test for babs - i would do either:
A) the new multispecies Babesia immunoblot at Igenex ( still an indirect test - but uses many more antigens to get a better chance of detecting any species )
https://igenex.com/disease/babesia/or
B)the T-Labs - fluorescent labelled antibody Babesia microscopy test - T-labs was set up by Dr M and a well known published microbiologist M. Ericson - its a good sensitive test - and does not rely on the host immune response at all - but may not be easy to access - ( i think t-labs require your LLMD to be working with Dr M - but this could have changed as i think they are growing as a test lab - used to be research only - but now have some approvals )
https://www.tlabdx.com/clia-tests