PCR tests for Borrelia?

Does anybody know the answers for these questions regarding PCR for Borrelia?

1- Is a positive PCR for Bb = lyme disease?

2- Does your health insurance accept a positive PCR for Bb as a proof that lyme disease is the culprit of your chronic problems? Meaning, does the insurance pay you medical costs if you show them a positive PCR for Bb?

3- How many cycles are the PCRs for Borrelia burgdorferi tests usually? Like 25, 30, 35, 40 cycles?

Thank you.

The reason I'm asking is this:

If positive PCRs for SarsCov2 run at 40-45 cycles are a PROOF the person is SICK with Covid19, why would it be different for lyme disease?

I never heard that positive PCRs for Borrelia constitute a 100% proof that we suffer from lyme, in the sense that health insurances will COVER our lyme treatment.

Not here in Europe.

You can show healthy insurances positive PCRs for Bb, first they had no idea what that was, then they said for lyme, they only accept Elisa and Westernblot.

So here, no way, PCRs are not taken as proof that a guy has lyme, not that I know.

And of course, insurance will cover only for short term treatment, for acute lyme disease, not for chronic lyme treatment.

I just wanted to know what's the situation in the USA or Canada.

Anyone knows?

I was positive for Lyme and erhlichia through DNA Connexions. Their test is PCR and looks for DNA of the bacteria. My understanding is that indicates current infection, as the bacteria is present. Antibody tests like Western Bot only indicate that a person has been exposed but cannot determine active vs inactive state.

I don’t know anything about the COVID PCR, but if it detects the presence of the virus, then the person has the virus whether symptomatic or asymptomatic. I don’t know what they’re doing if they are PCR positive but asymptomatic. Supposedly asymptomatic carriers are spreaders.

What I was told is pcr detects the DNA of the bacteria in your blood.
Positive means it was identified.
You can hang your hat on it.

Positive PCR for Borrelia = lyme disease for you all, right?

Why doctors do not do simply test PCR for Borrelia and then give us a diagnosis Lyme disease?

Shasta said...
Positive PCR for Borrelia = lyme disease for you all, right?

Why doctors do not do simply test PCR for Borrelia and then give us a diagnosis Lyme disease?

as explained above - PCR test sensitivity is poor for Lyme disease - it misses most cases

unfortunately unbiased objective "proof" does not exist in this world of vested interests and distortion of reality.
what is sufficient proof to a patient or LLMD - may not be proof to a conventional MD - and even less likely to be considered as proof by an ISDA MD who's career has been staked on the condition of chronic Lyme not existing ( not to mention the value of patents they may hold or their financial interests in serological tests).

ultimately, "proof" is a subjective phenomenon that exists in the mind of the observer, and people believe what they already want to believe.

But I think this issue is linked to the one above - as a relatively small proportion of people have PCR tests for Lyme as it's been shown in many studies to have relatively poor sensitivity. most will have various forms of serological tests done in preference to PCR due to lower cost and/or higher sensitivity - so the issue you point to doesn't come up very often.

in teh real world most people will have 1st a C6 ELISA - then maybe a western blot - if positive they go on to treatment
of those that are negative in the above tests - some will opt for repeat western blots or other serological tests or co-infection tests - or pursue another differential diagnosis for often years - before coming back to possible Lyme diagnosis and looking at more tests - possibly PCR at that point - or just treat based on clinical diagnosis - so only a v small fraction ever pop up in the PCR positive case.
and of those most will be treated through an LLMD - and so have access to treatment.

"But how come it's so easy to diagnose Covid?!?
Simple positive PCR = positive case of Covid, even if MOST people have no symptoms!!!"

It's not about "diagnosing covid" so much as it is tracking the spread/prevalence of the virus that causes it.. As I wrote before the test does not determine treatment.

I think what you're getting at is no more than a semantic discrepancy that has been discussed here before. I'll try to explain:

You can be PCR positive with borrelia b. yet be asymptomatic, same with sars-cov-2. One might refuse to call the bb positive a "case" of Lyme, yet they would call sars-cov-2 positive a "case" of covid-19.. but the important context for this discrepancy is with sars-cov-2/covid-19 we are tracking a highly contagious virus .. whether you call it a "case" of covid-19 or something else is not really consequential.. it doesn't determine treatment. So you can argue the term "case" is being used too loosely for asymptomatic (or previously unrecorded) covid-19 if you want (I don't think it matters) but if not "case".. then what else? What other term should be used when someone tests positive for the first time ever?

not sure if it helps with your struggle - but the two diseases have very different epidemiologies that dramatically impact the results given when investigated with PCR tests.

PCR cares about how many copies of the target DNA/RNA are in the sample:

in chronic Lyme in humans - this may be zero or only one or two copies( a single borrelia ) in the sample - due to the often very low levels of borrelia in the blood - this may be under the effective detection limit. even after multiplying up via PCR (50x 0 is still 0)

in contrast in SarsCov-2 in humans - there are 10,000,000 to 10,000,000,000 copies of RNA on a nasal swab - hence it's very easy to see how one can clearly say that a person with such a quantity of virus on a swab is "infected" with SarsCov-2 - even if they do not show symptoms.

actually, as you look into chronic bacterial infections of all forms through researching Lyme you will find that the whole concept of "Infected" and "not infected" is not really useful or accurate.

many bacteria and parasite species that can be pathogenic are present in people who appear to be entirely healthy. (including Lyme as mentioned above). also Mycoplasma, chlamydia, and many other species. the same goes for viruses.

most people will still have copies of the chickenpox, and various herpes virus members in their bodies from when they were infected as children or young adults, but held in check by the immune system such that normal healthy homeostasis is achieved and people are considered healthy.

in chronic infections with symptoms, this balance is lost and the person is considered sick - but the absolute numbers of pathogenic organisms may still be low - hence a great deal of debate amongst the various so-called experts on both sides.

for us here perhaps the most useful thing is to consider is - is the bacteria the real problem or is the immune system function the problem or is it a mixture of the two?