has anybody else heard that lyme disease is really hard to detect and that your blood test may come back negative even if you have it? Also that it has a really long incuabation period before it will even show up in your blood test (like 9 months after you have been bitten) kind of thing?

Lyme disease is very hard to detect and many with Lyme do get a negative test, even from IGeneX (the foremost recommended lab and the one used by LLMD's.

Actually, the longer you have it the more likely you will test neg, because it is a very smart bacterial and has many ways of going stealth.

You must treat it or you will never get rid of it. If you had it longer than 6 mos. (I believe it's 6 mos) you then have chronic lyme.

I bumped up my thread about Lyme and in it you will find some good links. www.canlyme.com is one of the best for info and there is a forum called "live discussions" (don't be fooled by that it is a forum, not live chat).

hugs

quote:

Originally posted by lulu6688:
has anybody else heard that lyme disease is really hard to detect and that your blood test may come back negative even if you have it? Also that it has a really long incuabation period before it will even show up in your blood test (like 9 months after you have been bitten) kind of thing?

From what I understand, if the Lyme itself has been in your system for longer than six months then not only do you have Chronic Lyme, but even though you can get rid of the Lyme itself, you can't ever truly get rid of the toxins and effects it causes. This is only true for some people, though -- the latest research shows that there are actually different blood types and gene markers that predispose people to being extra susceptible to the Lyme toxicity over a long period of time. I'll try to find the research I found on this and post it here. But yes, many people who are clinically diagnosed with Lyme have *never* received a positive Lyme serum test.

Kate C