A new test to detect Lyme infections is available. It was validated in a study here.
(The test can be bought online here or here and probably from other providers as well).
The quoted part of the study below is particularly interesting for people who have been sick for a long time. Looking forward to getting your views on the test.
" Treated patients under clinical evaluation for persistent or recurrent LB
Urinary OspA shedding was further evaluated in a cohort of 100 patients in a Lyme endemic geographic region who were under clinical surveillance for persistent or recurrent LB.
All of these patients had been previously treated with antibiotics, and all patients had been followed because of prolonged chronic functional symptoms such as arthralgias, neurocognitive symptoms, and fatigue. All of these patients lacked a CDC criteria defined LB serology positive IgG western blot serum test at the time of urine collection [34].
According to the IDSA (Infectious Diseases Society of America) 2006 and 2010 guidelines [35, 36], “To date, there is no convincing biologic evidence for the existence of symptomatic chronic B. burgdorferi infection among patients after receipt of recommended treatment regimens for Lyme disease.”
In contrast, according to ILADS (The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society), the diagnosis of persistent Lyme disease is a real phenomenon and often requires clinical judgment to be characterized [34].
Due to the frequent nonspecific nature of complaints and insensitivities of diagnostic studies, the clinician is forced to weigh the risk profile of any individual presenting with what may be considered Lyme disease. This includes the risk of tick exposure and the presenting symptom complex [8, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42].
In this study, urinary OspA scoring was performed blinded to the patient diagnosis or clinical findings. After the urine OspA scoring was completed, the clinical data was unblinded.
For this special group of previously treated patients under surveillance for persistent or recurrent LB, 41/100 were positive for urinary OspA C-terminal peptides (Additional file 1: Table S6).
This percentage of patients with positive urinary OspA is in keeping with the range of seven previous studies conducted in endemic areas where patients were being evaluated for suspected Lyme disease: 7–31 % active disease and 5–20 % previous Lyme disease in endemic areas [43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49]." (My bolding)
(The test can be bought online here or here and probably from other providers as well).
The quoted part of the study below is particularly interesting for people who have been sick for a long time. Looking forward to getting your views on the test.
" Treated patients under clinical evaluation for persistent or recurrent LB
Urinary OspA shedding was further evaluated in a cohort of 100 patients in a Lyme endemic geographic region who were under clinical surveillance for persistent or recurrent LB.
All of these patients had been previously treated with antibiotics, and all patients had been followed because of prolonged chronic functional symptoms such as arthralgias, neurocognitive symptoms, and fatigue. All of these patients lacked a CDC criteria defined LB serology positive IgG western blot serum test at the time of urine collection [34].
According to the IDSA (Infectious Diseases Society of America) 2006 and 2010 guidelines [35, 36], “To date, there is no convincing biologic evidence for the existence of symptomatic chronic B. burgdorferi infection among patients after receipt of recommended treatment regimens for Lyme disease.”
In contrast, according to ILADS (The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society), the diagnosis of persistent Lyme disease is a real phenomenon and often requires clinical judgment to be characterized [34].
Due to the frequent nonspecific nature of complaints and insensitivities of diagnostic studies, the clinician is forced to weigh the risk profile of any individual presenting with what may be considered Lyme disease. This includes the risk of tick exposure and the presenting symptom complex [8, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42].
In this study, urinary OspA scoring was performed blinded to the patient diagnosis or clinical findings. After the urine OspA scoring was completed, the clinical data was unblinded.
For this special group of previously treated patients under surveillance for persistent or recurrent LB, 41/100 were positive for urinary OspA C-terminal peptides (Additional file 1: Table S6).
This percentage of patients with positive urinary OspA is in keeping with the range of seven previous studies conducted in endemic areas where patients were being evaluated for suspected Lyme disease: 7–31 % active disease and 5–20 % previous Lyme disease in endemic areas [43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49]." (My bolding)