Need help- Tests to figure out what I have.

Seeking a sound diagnostic approach.

Background:
1 year of phantom come and go pains. Started with 10 days of fever. Months later in came the sharp and strange pain:
Heels, ribs, neck, throat, shins.
Suspect Lyme/Bart

1st appointment with LLMD next week.

Goal: to figure out what tests can find what I have. I don’t care if I have to buy more than one test. I just want to know what’s bugging me so I can do that correct treatment.

Feel free to refer me to a link if there is already a centralized thread summarizing testing.

this is the million-dollar question so many of us have - but the reality at the present time is that unless you are somewhat "lucky", testing is just not good enough to give black and white answers in every case.

testing as a rather involved subject in itself - but the summary is that the main issue in most of the tests for Lyme and co-infections is lack of sensitivity - and so they miss a lot of positive cases. many studies point to sensitivities between 20 and 50% ( meaning they miss up to 80% of cases)

there are many reasons for this e.g.
-sensitivity often depends on the strain of the bacteria - and strains in the wild are different from strains in the lab that were used to develop the tests.
-serological tests have sensitivity issues because many people do not produce the antibodies the test looks for - due to immune suppression/genetic variability etc
-PCR and other direct detection methods have sensitivity issues due to the often extremely low count of pathogens in the blood at any given time - in chronic illness. eg bart, lyme babs in particular

specificity is, in general, less of an issue - typically above 90% - and so a positive result is usually pretty safe - so if you are "lucky" enough to get one of those - then you can be reasonably sure that the infection is in fact present and move forward with treatment.

my main message here is tests can be helpful - but need to be interpreted carefully in the light of the patient history and clinical picture - and you might need to take the same test multiple times ( eg Bart or Lyme ) before getting a positive result - or you might need to take several different types of test for the same organism to get a more reliable picture of what is going on ( eg Lyme - ELISA, ELI-Spot, Western Blot, etc ). you can see how multiple tests for multiple organisms along with all the standard tests for general health conditions can get very costly.

each LLMD tends to take their own approach to this conundrum - some using lots of testing - and others preferring to rely more on clinical diagnosis.

if you have the funds for it i would tend to go for more rather than less - as greater certainty makes things considerably easier - but as WBF says bear in mind this can be just the beginning of a long journey and funds may have to stretch longer than you at first think.

based on the brief symptoms/history you describe I would certainly have tests for Bart and Lyme on the list - maybe babesia too if the fevers were high or you are still getting them - or any signs of occasional anemia or nausea. Bart testing is notoriously poor though.
Galaxy would get my vote for that too.