Beep -
If you're really sick you're likely to have a weak response to the kind of serology tests used to determine lyme, Babs. Fry Labs (Bart) does a smear and it could also miss something but in most cases--you see what you see. In my Fry smear I saw biofilm and invasion of red blood cells. Also, you might not register a sufficient response because it's been too long since the initial infection and generally, the longer you've been infected, the weaker your initial immune antibody response detected in these tests.
Some MDs also make a mistake by distinguishing IgG vs IgM and declare an IgM-positive and IgG-negative result as negative for lyme. With most other infections, IgM antibodies will go away in a couple of months and be replaced w/ IgGs--but not lyme. Here is a great explanation by an MD I found online:
Epitope Switching:
"IGM Antibodies in Lyme can remain positive indefinitely. If they do, it means you have a living germ in you. Any germ covering is made up of a layer of fat (phospholipids), into which proteins get stuck. So in short, a germ covering is proteins stuck in fat. In all infections EXCEPT Lyme and a handful of other infections, those proteins that get stuck are static. They do not move around. Therefore what the germ looks like to the immune system never changes. In the case of Lyme and a few other infections, those proteins do get moved around. There are 14 kinds of proteins in the Lyme germ. If those move, what the germ looks like is going to change and the immune system gets tricked into thinking it’s seeing a new infection and keeps making positive IGM antibodies."
Also--
The type of test is important. ELISA is supposed to be highly sensitive but it's also a serology test so if your immune system is challenged, it's going to have trouble finding antibody responses. If it is positive, it still isn't specific for lyme, which is why you have to follow up w/ a WB. Unfortunately, thanks to the CDC's fear of false positives, most insurance companies won't allow you to skip the ELISA and go straight for the WB, a cheaper and more logical approach.
But not all WBs are created equally - most LLMDs will use IGeneX because it provides more specific information (and the process of testing your blood is different but I forgot what that difference was):
"Many labs do not report the +/- findings, but IGeneX does.
The CDC does not yet recognize the IGeneX lab results because they are a private lab, but that does not mean that the results are any less valid. What it does mean, though, is that insurance is unfortunately less likely to cover the cost. IGeneX processes over 20,000 Lyme tests a year, and can adhere to a more specialized structure than the CDC regulations. IGeneX includes band 31 in their testing, and also offers 30-31kDa confirmation-these bands are often positive due to cross-reactivity with other viruses, and IGeneX uses highly specific recombination antigens to validate results. In addition, IgG needs only 2 bands present (instead of 5), and the IgM needs 2 (like the Western Blot)."
Here is another good source:
www.anapsid.org/lyme/wb.htmlSo, without positive results, I agree w/ k07 that your MD is going to treat you according to your clinical presentation. Based on your responses to the specific protocol for the specific infections, you'll either improve or herx--indicating that something is being affected by the abx... or you won't have any reaction and you either try a different treatment or move on to a different possible cause.
Unfortunately for you, 7-8 months is kind of just getting started in this world. It's so frustrating. Are you experiencing any reaction to your protocol?
-p