What Are The Best Tests For Lyme Disease
At the Carolina Brain Center, we recommend two tests. One is DNA Connexions, a urine test. The other is MacTech Imaging, a saliva test.
The DNA Connexions test identifies co-infections common to Lyme disease. MacTech Imaging picks up where the DNA Connexions test leaves off by giving doctors an idea of a patients overall microbial load. Each saliva sample is scanned for spirochetes and then given a graded score.
These two unique tests allow us to proceed confidently with treatment. Post-treatment analysis informs doctors as to whether a patient is clear.
How To Approach Your Non
For various reasons, you may choose to consult with a doctor who doesnt specialize in Lyme disease or other tick-borne diseases.
If so, be sure to be as proactive as possible in providing information that could help in diagnosing your disease, and always feel free to share resources that you find in your own research to prompt discussions about any aspect of your diagnosis or treatment, including more advanced testing options.
If your doctor does not believe Lyme disease exists, reach out to another doctor for a second opinion.
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Lyme Disease In Wisconsin
Lyme disease in Wisconsin is a growing problem. When winters are warmer, the tick population increases, creating more risk. The Wisconsin Department of Health reports that there were 38,000 cases reported in the state between 1980 and 2015. We treat many people in our region for this disease at our functional medicine clinic near Milwaukee.
Lyme disease is transmitted to humans by infected black legged or deer ticks. The ticks get the disease from biting infected animals. Lyme disease in Wisconsin and the rest of the country is usually caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacterial spirochete. In 2013, health department officials noted that a rare species of bacteria, Borrelia mayonii, was also causing some infections.
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Identify Doctors Trained In The Diagnosis And Treatment Of Tick
You can access a variety of online resources and directories to locate doctors who are specifically trained in identifying and treating tick-borne illnesses. These do not have to be infectious disease specialists they can be physicians from any practice area who simply have extensive experience with tick-borne diseases.
It is particularly important to find a Lyme expert if you suspect that you may have Lyme disease, since it is the most frequently misdiagnosed of all tick-borne diseases. Finding a Lyme-literate medical doctor a physician who is familiar with the vast range of symptoms that may indicate infection at various stages of the disease, as well as potential coinfections and other complexitiescan help ensure that you get the right treatment, right away.
To find a doctor who is also a Lyme expert, you may want to explore the following resources:
Note: Some of these organizations may require you to submit a form or create a login to access their databases.
Thoughts On Llmd/llnd Finder
Hi- I appreciate what you folks are doing. I believe some time ago you sent me the name of an ilads Dr. in San Diegoit was a female. Well my wife passed away and anyhow I lost the name of the Dr. I live in Phoenix area and there is an ilads Dr. I am going to Dr. F. and nothing is happening. Would appreciate any help you can give. Thanks, Allen
Hi Allen, We dont have lists of doctors ourselves, but we just suggest you email the organizations listed on this post as they have LLMD lists. Also you might want to read through this post as it lists support groups you can join in California or Arizona and they would certainly have names of doctors for you in your area.
I am so sorry about your wife. Was it from Lyme disease? My condolences to you. < 3
Support groups in California
Also if you are on Facebook, you can add me and I can post a question for you and have people send you their info on doctors in your area. My FB page is
I hope you find what you are looking for.
Lisa
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Push: Experiences Within Conventional Canadian Health Care
All participants had first sought assistance for their health-care concerns within the CCHS before turning to other options. The participants described negative experiences within the CCHS including perceived misdiagnoses, failure to obtain a diagnosis or improvement in symptoms, often after years of multiple specialist consultations , and insufficient or delayed antibiotic treatment drugs to treat my symptoms, but because of the political climate surrounding Lyme disease, he refused to prescribe conventional antibiotics).
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Beginning Lyme Treatment Tip: Just Start Somewhere
One evening, I was feeling particularly down. I needed to decide what to do. Each week, day-by-day, I seemed to feel worse and worse. I needed to decide, but I felt paralyzed for fear that Id make the wrong decision.
I was chatting with a dear friend from college who has been battling Lyme disease. She wisely encouraged me, Literally, start somewhere. It doesnt matter where. Switch if youre not happy.
That was it. That was what I needed to hear about beginning Lyme treatment. Just start somewhere. And that is what I did.
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Legal Mandates To Cover Unproven Treatments
The state of Connecticut, meanwhile, enacted a law on June 18, 2009, to allow a licensed physician to prescribe, administer or dispense long-term antibiotics for a therapeutic purpose to a patient clinically diagnosed with Lyme disease. The states of Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Maine, and Iowa have similar laws.
Massachusetts and Rhode Island have laws mandating insurance coverage for long-term antibiotic therapy for Lyme disease when deemed medically necessary by a physician. In 1999 Connecticut had passed a similar, though somewhat more restrictive law.
Lyme Literate Child Abuser Disciplined Twice
Charles Ray Jones, MD is a long time quack who is notorious for abusing children with dangerous long-term antibiotics regimens. He was twice disciplined for misconduct by the Connecticut Medical Examining Board. The medical board documents are included below.
Medical Child Abuse is a rampant problem in the alternative universe of chronic Lyme. Such abuse often includes both psychological and physical abuse.
Jones is also a former director of the dangerous pseudoscience group ILADS.
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Expert Care Exceptional Skin
Lyme disease is a bacterial illness and inflammatory disease that spreads through tick bites. Deer ticks house the spirochete bacterium in their stomachs. When one of these ticks bites the human skin, it may pass the bacteria into the body. These ticks tend to be attracted to creases in the body, so Lyme disease most often appears in armpits, the nape of the neck, and/or the backs of knees. Lyme disease has systemic implications and can cause abnormalities in the skin, heart, joints, and nervous system. It is important to begin Lyme disease treatment early.
More than 150,000 cases of Lyme disease have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control since 1982, making this an uncommon but serious condition. Cases have been reported from every state, although most diagnoses are clustered in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast.
If you think you have Lyme disease, schedule an appointment with your doctor as soon as possible. This condition is notoriously difficult to diagnose, and several rounds of a Lyme disease test may be necessary. The only way to start the process is to schedule the first appointment, and visiting our Mt. Vernon clinic can set you on the road to treatment.
International Lyme And Associated Diseases Society
The International Lyme and Associated Disease Society is a nonprofit, multi-disciplinary, international medical society aimed at advancing the treatment, research, and education efforts of Lyme and associated diseases. ILADS provides training to physicians who want to enhance their skill set to evaluate and treat and other tick-borne illnesses. Physicians who successfully complete the training requirements established by ILADS are known as Lyme-literate medical doctors, or LLMDs.
To locate Lyme-literate doctors, use the Provider Search function on the ILADS website to receive a list of doctors in your area. Please note: ILADS states they dont make referrals to specific doctors. Its up to you to decide which practitioner is the right fit for your needs.
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Is There An Effective Treatment For Lyme Disease
Dr. Dane was introduced to a new treatment for Lyme disease in 2017. It was not an antibiotic, nor was it an herbal remedy. It was a mineral compound produced in liquid form that could be turned into a gaseous state and nebulized. The product essentially acts as a fumigator and blasts the body with a blend of minerals that kills the spirochetes and improves immune function. Skeptical at first, Dr. Dane tracked eight patients over the course of a year that she had treated for the neurological effects of Lyme disease. Much to her amazement, seven of those patients were clear of Lyme just over a year later. Symptom relief varied from completely gone to 50% better. However, some effects of CLD cannot be reversed.
The mineral product is called Lyme-N, and, like many aspects of Lyme disease, its effectiveness is controversial. But this is the only treatment Dr. Dane has seen eradicate the spirochetes associated with CLD.
Dr. Dane has witnessed many patients put their trust in her after becoming frustrated with more traditional Lyme disease treatments at other medical facilities. The Carolina Brain Centers way of treating patients is built upon the tenets of functional neurology, which use a combination of medical technology and brain therapy to produce healing where possible and the easing of symptoms in other cases.
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For women who have Lyme disease, the struggle can be especially difficult, given the complicated nature of the disease.
“The problem with Lyme disease is that there are so many different strains,” said Dr. Andrea Gaito, a New Jersey-based rheumatologist who specializes in treating Lyme disease. “One person can have it and have headaches, someone else can have joint pain, someone else can have palpitations. And none of these are specific to Lyme. There’s no Lyme test that’s 100% accurate. Unless you have a tick in a baggie, literally, and a bulls-eye rash, there’s sometimes a delay in diagnosis.”
A Long Journey of Pain and MisdiagnosisTait estimates that she had Lyme for about 15 years before she was diagnosed. She thinks she was bitten by a tick as a teen in Californias Bay Area, where she grew up. In high school, she was a dancer. Suddenly she was getting injured more than usual joints coming out of their sockets and ligaments tearing after doing normal routines. During class, she was exhausted and having trouble concentrating. Her grades started to slip.
Looking back, its now clear I was neurologically starting to not be myself, she said. But when youre a teenager, a lot of it is just attributed to, Youre a teenager!
Tait, who was thin with a bubbly personality, recalled one doctor telling her she was too pretty to be sick.
Eventually she was diagnosed with depression and prescribed an antidepressant.
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State And Local Lyme Organizations And Nonprofits
If youre unable to find an LLMD through a national organization, consider doing a web search for a state or local Lyme organization or nonprofit. Some keywords that may generate helpful, search results for you include:
- The name of your state
- Lyme disease
- Nonprofit
For example, typing in Minnesota Lyme disease nonprofit yields the Minnesota Lyme Association , where you can then browse their website for ways to locate a physician or fill out the contact form for more help. These days, most states have some sort of site to distribute information to inquiring patients.
Treatment Starts With Accurate Diagnosis
The only way to get the proper treatment for your tick-borne disease is to get the right diagnosis in the first place and one of the best ways to do that is, if possible, to see a physician whos experienced with tick-borne diseases. Accurate diagnosis also requires high quality testing at a reputable lab. Learn more about why doctors and patients trust the tests offered by IGeneX.
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Be Prepared For Your Doctor Visit
You can improve your chances of having an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment by providing your doctor with as much information as you can from the very start. The following checklist can be a good reminder of what to bring and discuss with your physician at your first visit:
- Have the tick tested and/or identified:If you were able to remove or find the tick that bit you, seal it in a glass or plastic container and consider sending it to IGeneX for testing. Additionally, photograph the tick and/or have the species identified ahead of time if possible. Knowing what kind of tick bit you and, in particular, whether it has tested positive for a tick-borne disease can be extremely helpful for your doctors diagnostic process. If the tick is still being tested when you see your doctor, you still may be able to start treatment based on the severity of your symptoms.
- Note possible exposure: Write down the places and dates that you believe you were exposed to ticksand the possible date and time of day when the engorged tick attached and fell off or was removed.
- Track your symptoms: Keep a running log of all symptoms youve noticed since the tick bite, even if youre no longer experiencing them. Be sure to include the days/times when symptoms appeared . For additional help, you can use IGeneXs Symptom Checker.
- Take pictures: Take pictures of any rashes or blisters that you may have noticed at the site of the tick bite or elsewhere on your body.
Chronic Lyme Disease: Best Testing Best Treatment
Health Tips / Chronic Lyme Disease: Best Testing, Best Treatment
Last week I suggested if youve been suffering longstanding but otherwise unexplained symptoms, a long-ago tick bite might be an overlooked possibility and you could now be dealing with chronic Lyme disease. I added that your recovery may well be delayed by some totally unnecessary and immature bickering among physicians about the correct name for this condition.
For simplicitys sake, what I call chronic Lyme in this Health Tip means that youre feeling the widespread effects of the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, inserted into you during a tick bite. This germ may have spread throughout your body because your immune system was unable to inactivate it.
The deer tick, a filthy little beast, may also have deposited several other co-infections that youve likely never heard of. When a person with Lyme fails to improve, it can indicate that she also has Babesia, Bartonella, Ehrlichia, or Anaplasma. Unfortunately, more and more tick-borne illnesses are being discovered worldwide.
Last weeks Health Tip contains links to a couple Lyme questionnaires that, when completed, could give you an idea if this diagnosis is a possibility. I suggested that if this were the case to ask your physician to order the Lyme Western Blot test for you.
How Western Blot test results are expressedYour test results will come back in one of three categories:
Whats your next step?
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Confronting The Misnomer Of Chronic Lyme Disease
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Studies suggest that around 300,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year in the United States, according to the CDC, with 14 states in the Northeast and upper Midwest accounting for 96% of reported cases. As the most commonly reported tickborne illness in the country, Lyme disease has grown in incidence and expanded beyond its historically endemic range in the last 2 decades.
The CDC estimates that 70% to 80% of patients with Lyme disease develop the telltale erythema migrans rash, but some patients may exhibit only symptoms of fever, fatigue or muscle/joint pain, which leaves physicians to piece together the diagnosis after confirming whether the patient was in a Lyme-endemic area. If symptoms are vague, physicians may order a blood test. If a diagnosis of Lyme disease is confirmed, patients should be prescribed a 2- to 4-week course of antibiotics, according to current Infectious Diseases Society of America guidelines.
H. Cody Meissner, MD,
The rise of chronic Lyme
First diagnosed in Connecticut in 1975, Lyme disease remained an etiologic mystery until the discovery of the spirochete, a corkscrew-shaped bacterium named Borrelia burgdorferi, which is primarily transmitted through the bite of the blacklegged tick, or deer tick .
Dangers of alternative therapies
Off the map
Consider all possibilities
- References:
Diagnosing Lyme Disease In Wisconsin Is Still Difficult
Even though our state has one of the highest rates of Lyme disease, practitioners still have difficulty diagnosing Lyme disease in Wisconsin. The bacteria that invade humans after they have been bitten can affect the skin, muscles, joints, nervous system, cardiovascular system, ocular tissue, sinus tissue, gastrointestinal tract and lungs.
Lyme disease is known as the great mimicker, and practitioners who are not very familiar with the disease often make the wrong diagnosis. To further complicate things, the disease affects each person differently, leading to many missed diagnoses of Lyme disease in Wisconsin and across the country.
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