Re: The lab problem

[Guest guest]

, our lab situation is extremely sad. Did you know that our famous hospitals in San Diego used to send their tests to the Houston Esoterix lab that specialized in infectious disease? That is until recently when Labcorp bought Esoterix out and turned them into just another cookie cutter lab. My own tests were performed by Esoterix (and an Australian lab AND Tony). Independent of each other they all basically found the same things in my samples. Abundant growths of highly resistant staph, strep and pseudomonas. The Labcorp labs wouldn't bother to really look at these samples or give them time to grow. They would have just thrown them all out as "normal flora" despite the fact that they were actually making me very sick. I wouldn't have even known about Esoterix if not for Shoemaker. I wouldn't have been treated for chronic

osteomyelitis of the jaw with i.v. abx if not for Esoterix (and by extension, Shoemaker). Now that Esoterix is gone, who's left to actually investigate in depth what's going on in our samples? I always thought the hospital labs were our last line of defense, but if even the hospitals were sending their samples to Esoterix, what does that say about things? You're a smart, smart guy and I'm hopeful you will make big inroads into our illness. But please don't just buy the party line about "normal flora". It's become such a mantra that no one even thinks about what they're really saying anymore. These flora aren't normal. Esoterix showed it all the time. But apparently, they were the only ones who bothered. Sadly Labcorp has become a monopoly of mediocrity. I went to my old Unilab the other day and it was gone. I called around and was informed they were bought out by Quest (and

then shutdown). Quest of course is also owned by Labcorp now. I couldn't find a single lab in San Diego that's not owned by Labcorp. What a sorry situation. penny <usenethod@...> wrote: Well I guess I don't really know as much about it as I implied. Icertainly wouldn't rely on it for 100% good information, but maybe ifan organism causing the lesion were very abundant, that would at

leastincrease the chances that that organism dominates on the plate.How do they recover S. pyogenes, as opposed to everything else that'sthere, when they swab the mucosal surface for strep throat? Is it justthat the pyogenes are so abundant in the strep throat situation, thatat least 10% or something of the colonies they recover on normalmedium are S pyogenes?>> So eric- are you saying it's not worth INVESTIGATING??Regardless > what anyone teaches you, INFORMATION is better than guessing IMO.> tony>