I'm curious why there isn't a "smoking gun", i.e. the actual Lyme causing bacteria being found in vivo rather than these inconclusive diagnostic tests and questionnaires. Seems like the first step to Getting Serious.
You can detect Lyme in the bloodstream, but it's much easier and hundreds of times cheaper to look for the human immune response - IgG and IgM - with a Western Blot or ELISA. The actual Bb spirochete is so dilute in the blood that a PCR test (costing upwards of $5k) is typically the only thing that will definitively detect it.
The "getting serious" bit is a policy request: why is the federal or state government paying so little attention to an issue that affects and injures hundreds of thousands of people per year?
There's all these linked stories of people suffering for years not knowing definitively what they have, a 5k test to diagnose for sure seems like a bargain. I don't understand why the CDC says chronic lyme doesn't exist and suffers claim they think it does but they don't know for sure. Why not settle it with a real test?
You can detect Lyme in the bloodstream, but it's much easier and hundreds of times cheaper to look for the human immune response - IgG and IgM - with a Western Blot or ELISA. The actual Bb spirochete is so dilute in the blood that a PCR test (costing upwards of $5k) is typically the only thing that will definitively detect it.
The "getting serious" bit is a policy request: why is the federal or state government paying so little attention to an issue that affects and injures hundreds of thousands of people per year?