Canada Nova Scotia. Please read and help

For about two years i have been having many neurological symptoms very similar to ms such as optic nerutiis sensitivty to heat, arm leg weakness etc. i also have heart palpitations and etc.. but my mri is clean and all my blood work is good. I read somewhere that this guy had misdiagnosed ms with lesions on his brain come to find out he had lyme disease and now he is on long term treatment and he is getting better. I am really scared and i know lyme disease is an option because i lived in a county full of ticks but i never heard of someone getting the disease. But this could be an option and i pray to god it is. I have a jerk of a doctor who laughed at me one time because i brought it up. Anyway I need to know everything about this lyme disease from symptoms to tests to treatments because I want to pursue this and HOPEFULLY i have lyme disease instead of MS. Please help me with this.

Cant my family doctor help me?

Email me with LLMD request - BC in the title!

You should read through our "New to Lyme? Start here!" thread - it's got a ton of important information there!! Symptoms lists, tips and hints on detoxing, different treatments, and many other things!

Please realize that the blood tests aren't all that reliable - they miss approximately 50% of those that actually have the disease. The same goes for the co-infections that often come along with Lyme disease.

One of the best labs to use is Igenex in California (www.igenex.com/‎) - although there are a couple of others in the US that have a decent reputation. I'm sure others will remember the names of those labs and post as well. Many uneducated doctors say that their testing is "rigged" to give more positive results, but that's not true once you understand the testing and how it's supposed to be done.

I would skip the ELISA - it's pretty much worthless when talking about tick-borne diseases from everything that I have read.

The Western Blot isn't much better since it misses at least 50% of those that actually have the disease. Part of the reason this happens is because they are only looking at 4 or 5 of the possible 300 strains that may cause illness in humans. There is no test that's been developed that looks for more yet though.

The PCR is about the best blood test, and Igenex is probably the best lab to do this. Go to their site and read carefully about how to get the samples to their labs in a timely fashion.

With a good LLMD, no you won't wait around. They will diagnose you clinically and start treatment, understanding that the tests may or may not show an infection, but understanding that there is much room for improvement with them.

You can start adjusting your body for healing today though! Start by cleaning up your diet - no sugar, minimal caffeine, no sodas, lots of vegetables and leafy greens. Those are the most basics - some go a lot farther because of sensitivities or allergies that they may have developed. Drinking at least 64 ounces of water a day is really good too. Adding in lemon juice will help push your body over to the alkaline side so that it is less hospitable for bacteria and viruses.

You can also start detoxing right away - drinking all that water is part of it, so is dry skin brushing, detox soaks, and some other things like using FIR saunas. It's explained much better in our "New to Lyme?" thread.

Thanks MomWithLyme.

Our daughter tested negative on the ELISA in Ontario, so there was no chance of having the western blot done. We have a 2 tier system in Canada and you have to be positive on the first tier to graduate to the second test. We had the second tier WB and coinfection testing done in the US through Igenex.  They test for more of the strains of lyme, and report more of the lyme-specific reactive bands.

You are very lucky you live near the border.

Lyme did not turn out to be our daughter's major problem. One of the coinfections - bartonella, was the cause of both her pain and psychiatric symptoms.

In Ontario, all doctors are constrained from treating past the IDSA guidelines for lyme, which is short-term abx treatment only. If they don't adhere to the guidelines their license to practice will be forfeit.  I believe this applies to the whole of Canada as well.

Please talk to your local representative.