My polish blood smear results came back

BlazerGermany said...
thanks for clarifying.


i didnt know artefacts are that easy to produce under giemsa stain as i am a newbie on that field..

so just to clarify further -
giemsa is known to be a stain that actually produces its own artefacts - it can be minimised with good technique but is always present to some degree
but the main problem is that there are things in normal blood that are real physical objects - that pick up stain - and can be indistinguishable from Babesia
platelets for instance stain the same colour as babesia - and have variable size and shape - so some of them are essentially identical in appearance - so even the best experts cannot tell them apart.
if there are enough babesia it gets much easier - as there will also be more definitive examples

BlazerGermany said...
maybe atovaquone + doxycycline but never read about that combination.

doxycycline is given as a antimalaria preventative to people who are traveling to endemic regions - so yes i believe it can be used alongside atovaquone. if i recall correctly one stage of the apicomplexan lifecycle is susceptible to many common antibiotics - and the other stages of its lifecycle only susceptible to antimalarials - and that's why they are used in this combination.

babesia is still a possibility in my own case - i have never seen real clear evidence in all the slides i have done - so its doubtful - but - given the potential for it to be present at very low levels in the circulating blood in chronic cases - its a hard one to bottom out

keep us posted how you get on with your various trails

yep, i have been teaching myself microscopy for several years now Blazer - i was able to successfully and definitively diagnose myself with bartonella - which all blood tests to date had failed to detect.
i am mainly using Giemsa stain

knowing with certainty what i am dealing with, rather than just suspicions, has been tremulously helpful and i am now also using it to help track my recovery.

i have a technical background and in my work life became regarded as expert in several fields over the course of my career - so this is a part of my nature and just the latest deep dive

ref your own slides - i have thought about offering this as a service - i would like to help and i am genuinely interested to see what we would see ( i would of course share images with commentary), but, just now, i think i may have a few too many things to do and too little time and energy to do them all

the last few months i have been ramping up pulses of antibiotics and biofilm agents - i have improved - and in the gaps between pulses i am definitely at the best yet - the problem is during the ON pulses the herx can still be rather heavy at times leaving me with limited energy and falling behind with things i need to get done.