Positive Test for Lyme from Bowen--(LONG post)

[Guest guest]

Hi Group--Three days ago my doc's office called and said the preliminary

test (just positive or negative) from Bowen came back positive for B.B.

(Lyme). I should get the " pictures " of the bacteria in the blood in a

few weeks.

I feel as if I just got a " cancer " diagnosis or something equally bad.

I am very glad to finally have something more " definitive " to go after

instead of the more nebulous CFIDS and FMS diagnoses. But after years of

being very ill, to think of long-term damage from the Lyme bacteria is

very sobering. And Lyme treatment is very sobering--long-term high-dose

oral and/or IV treatment especially for late-stage people like me with

no guarantee of outcome. And you may know there is a raging controversy

in the medical community now between the only a few weeks or months of

abx will " cure " you or at least put you into remission mentality vs.

the reality of the patient advocates and the very few lyme-literate

doctors who state that aggressive, long-term treatment is necessary.

Several of these doctors are losing their licenses or being investigated

and the Lyme community is fighting like " hell " to keep that from

happening.

My husband just spent the $400 and sent blood to both Bowen Institute

and to Lida Mattman, Ph.D. who actually does a different type of test

where she grows out a person's blood. One must do the Mattman culture

through Bowen and everything is being done for " research " purposes at

this time. Bowen url again is www.bowen.org

I strongly suspect that he will be positive also as he's had arthritis

since age 8 and grew up in rural Missouri. I must say that unless

someone has lived inside or in the desert all their life, that

undetected tick bites are a reality.

I have been doing major research the last 6 months and have gone through

tests from 5 labs before getting these positive test results. As I have

mentioned before, I have had done the standard ELISA from a local lab

(worthless for late stage Lyme), Western Blot and LUAT from Igenex (the

Lyme lab in CA), blood PCR from Immunosciences,

blood and urine PCR from Medical Diagnostic Lab in NJ. All were

negative. This is typical for Lymies as the spirochete is hard to

find--it replicates slowly and hangs out in tissues rather than in

blood. Is hard to pick up unless one has innovative and newer testing

such as being done at Bowen and by Dr. Mattman. It will probably be a

very long time before even the Lyme community will get around to using

these. And patients will continue to go

undiagnosed/untreated/undertreated.

So some of you may ask why I trust Bowen's results. 1. Because they have

pictures of the cyst form of the bacterium. 2. Because my Erlichia test

from Igenex was positive and Lyme and erlichia go hand in hand. 3. My

symptoms FIT!!! far more specifically than they do for just CFIDS and

FMS.

I am experiencing a wealth of emotions right now. Relief that I have

something more concrete to deal with. Anger at myself for not having

explored the Lyme possibility years ago. Anger at my doctors for not

having done so. Anger at the CFIDS and FMS communities for not having

done so. The burden of having two Lymies is one household. Fear,

frustration, sadness etc etc. And " hope " that someday I may feel at

least a little better.

I don't know yet if I will continue to either monitor or be an active

participant of this list as I must spend my precious energy now on Lyme

issues.

People may e-mail me privately if they have serious questions about tick

diseases after they have done their own research. There's ton's of info

on the Net and several support groups. And they may ask me about my

experiences with a non-specific transfer factor product for building

general immunity.

Thanks to everyone on this list for your information and support.

Special thanks to Christie. Good luck to all!!!

Hope