Good morning! Sorry it has been awhile from my last post. Time just seems to be getting away from me lately.

As May comes to an end – I thought I’d give you an update on my Lyme Disease.  So I’ve had some questions answered and I have more now that I’ve looked at my results a bit more.

Here is what I learned at my appointment – I was probably infected within 6 months of my diagnosis since the Western Blot came back positive.  So I was infected sometime between May and November.  I’m going to find out at my next nutritionist appointment when I first reported my exhaustion – I think it was early on when I started going and we chalked it up to my food changes.

I’m pleased to announce that the Western Blot test came back Negative – so according to the CDC – I’m cured!  However, as I’ve look at my test results a bit more – I have more questions.

• November Test Results:
  • Lyme Ab Interp, EIA:  Positive
  • Lyme Disease Ab, Quant, Igm:  1.60H (Positive is > 1.09)
  • I don’t have the page for the Western Blot – and I need to get the rest of this report
• April Test Results:
  • Lyme AB Interp, EIA;  Positive Abnormal  
  • Lyme Disease Ab, Quant, IgM:  1.47H (Positive is >1.09) – but it is going down!
  • Lyme IgM WB (Western Blot):  Negative – and positive for some of the Borrelia-specific bands – I wonder is there something to do for this or it will run its course?

The actual diagnosis states the following:  An equivocal or positive EIA result followed by a negative Western Blot (WB) result is considered NEGATIVE – so that is where the NEGATIVE comes in.

Why am I skeptical?  A couple of things: I’ve read quite a bit of information from different sources, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of research being doing on this (and some of the things I’ve seen on chronic lyme scares the you know what out of me; however, I think my risk for this is very, very low) and lastly the thing that really bothers me is my exhaustion level.  Here is my most recent example:  I was traveling last week for work – I wasn’t out late any of the evenings except the night I traveled back home (got home around midnight) – it took me most of the 3 day weekend to recover – that isn’t normal!

I guess time will tell – part of me wonders if this will be like Mono (yes I’ve had that before too) – will it just have to run its course out of my body – I sure hope that is what it is.  Something that makes me believe this is I can’t donate blood for a year past my diagnosis – found that out last night (though if you have Chronic Lyme – they don’t want you to donate).

I will repeat from my first Great Imitator post why I’m sharing:  AWARENESS!  May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month!  It is all about PREVENTION:  http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/ or http://www.lymedisease.org/lyme101/prevention/lyme_prevention.html as there isn’t a lot of understanding or support on the long term effects of Lyme Disease by the Health Care Industry .  So please be extra careful this spring, summer and fall since we did not have a very cold winter – there are a lot more deer ticks since they weren’t killed off with the cold.