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There isn't a "smoking gun" detector for Lyme in much the same way that there isn't a "smoking gun" detector for cancer. Diagnosing Lyme with blood tests is onl

There isn't a "smoking gun" detector for Lyme in much the same way that there isn't a "smoking gun" detector for cancer. Diagnosing Lyme with blood tests is only one tiny piece of the controversy around Lyme.

sooheon 7y ago
For cancer, you can do a biopsy and know for sure. The equivalent would seem to be presence of the bacterial infection in the body.
- epmaybe 7y ago
  Right, but if you could do it for Lyme couldn't you do it for every bacteria? Blood testing would be our best bet, and we already do that with Lyme antibody testing and Lyme DNA testing. The main problem is that they are very expensive tests (usually a couple hundred dollars, and not always covered by insurance) and thus you need enough clinical suspicion to make the call to get something like that. How do you further increase your suspicion when you have a disease that mimics a lot of other diseases, without breaking the bank?
  - sooheon 7y ago
    Antibody testing seems to have wiggle room, which causes people to assume they have Lyme whatever the result. If they believe chronic Lyme is ruining their lives, and long term antibiotics will help, why not take a conclusive test that actually finds the bacteria and know for sure? What's missing from all these anecdotes is that they go from not being sure of the diagnosis, to trying a fringe treatment against the recommendation of multiple medical bodies.
    - epmaybe 7y ago
      Dna testing is available but has similar problems in that there's no standard to set a cutoff for limiting the number of false positives or false negatives. It's also even more expensive and very unlikely to be covered by insurance.
    - eigenloss 7y ago
      You say all of these things, as a probably-not-100-year-old-human, about a genus of highly advanced shapeshifting spirochete bacteria that have spent the past (perhaps) 500 million years living in the bloodstreams and bodily tissues -- and evading the immune systems -- of billions of mammals and reptiles (and everything between) across the globe. We only found out about these spirochetes in 1981. That's 38 years ago. You're probably older than that. Yet you have cited precisely zero sources, arguing by shooting holes in straw men. For the love of <God>, and all that is holy, Sooheon: please base your opinions on evidence.
      - sooheon 7y ago
        Not sure what rubbed you the wrong way, these are just questions I have as I read about this topic for the first time, trying to understand the controversy here. I'm not going to have reams of citations for you. If you have citations to throw at me feel free, but from what I can see, reliable medical bodies consider this to be a misdiagnosis at best.
- eigenloss 7y ago
  You can have hundreds of cancerous tumors in your body, each of which is far too small to biopsy. The same is roughly true for borreliosis. You are not making a cogent point here.
  - sooheon 7y ago
    People have cancerous mutations all the time, yet those aren't the cancers that kill us. Cancers people die from tend to have grown, to a size you can detect. When someone suffers from life threatening cancer-like symptoms, it's not literally impossible to find whether they actually have it. This seems to be the case for chronic lyme, where the medical consensus is that there is "no reproducible or convincing scientific evidence of any relationship to Borrelia burgdorferi".
    - eigenloss 7y ago
      The article is talking about the problem of Lyme being widespread and poorly understood in general -- chronic Lyme is not a focal point.

sooheon 7y ago

For cancer, you can do a biopsy and know for sure. The equivalent would seem to be presence of the bacterial infection in the body.

epmaybe 7y ago
Right, but if you could do it for Lyme couldn't you do it for every bacteria? Blood testing would be our best bet, and we already do that with Lyme antibody testing and Lyme DNA testing. The main problem is that they are very expensive tests (usually a couple hundred dollars, and not always covered by insurance) and thus you need enough clinical suspicion to make the call to get something like that. How do you further increase your suspicion when you have a disease that mimics a lot of other diseases, without breaking the bank?
- sooheon 7y ago
  Antibody testing seems to have wiggle room, which causes people to assume they have Lyme whatever the result. If they believe chronic Lyme is ruining their lives, and long term antibiotics will help, why not take a conclusive test that actually finds the bacteria and know for sure? What's missing from all these anecdotes is that they go from not being sure of the diagnosis, to trying a fringe treatment against the recommendation of multiple medical bodies.
  - epmaybe 7y ago
    Dna testing is available but has similar problems in that there's no standard to set a cutoff for limiting the number of false positives or false negatives. It's also even more expensive and very unlikely to be covered by insurance.
  - eigenloss 7y ago
    You say all of these things, as a probably-not-100-year-old-human, about a genus of highly advanced shapeshifting spirochete bacteria that have spent the past (perhaps) 500 million years living in the bloodstreams and bodily tissues -- and evading the immune systems -- of billions of mammals and reptiles (and everything between) across the globe. We only found out about these spirochetes in 1981. That's 38 years ago. You're probably older than that. Yet you have cited precisely zero sources, arguing by shooting holes in straw men. For the love of <God>, and all that is holy, Sooheon: please base your opinions on evidence.
    - sooheon 7y ago
      Not sure what rubbed you the wrong way, these are just questions I have as I read about this topic for the first time, trying to understand the controversy here. I'm not going to have reams of citations for you. If you have citations to throw at me feel free, but from what I can see, reliable medical bodies consider this to be a misdiagnosis at best.
eigenloss 7y ago
You can have hundreds of cancerous tumors in your body, each of which is far too small to biopsy. The same is roughly true for borreliosis. You are not making a cogent point here.
- sooheon 7y ago
  People have cancerous mutations all the time, yet those aren't the cancers that kill us. Cancers people die from tend to have grown, to a size you can detect. When someone suffers from life threatening cancer-like symptoms, it's not literally impossible to find whether they actually have it. This seems to be the case for chronic lyme, where the medical consensus is that there is "no reproducible or convincing scientific evidence of any relationship to Borrelia burgdorferi".
  - eigenloss 7y ago
    The article is talking about the problem of Lyme being widespread and poorly understood in general -- chronic Lyme is not a focal point.