My latest doctor's appointment with Dr. M was a bit of a disappointment. As I wrote previously, Dr. M (a Lyme literate medical doctor, or LLMD) wants me to take Lyme provocation test. This involves taking antibiotics or some other type of Lyme treatment to "provoke" any potential Lyme spirochetes, making it easier to detect in an IGenex blood test. I don't want to take antibiotics, so the provoking agent she gave me was an herbal product called A-L Complex.
I reported back to Dr. M that I simply wasn't able to complete the provocation test. Every time I tried to "ramp up" the dose of A-L Complex, I felt simply horrible. I just couldn't do.
Dr. M told me there are other options, so she switched me to a different provoking agent called MC-BB-1. I can already tell this new treatment is much more mild. I am handling it fine, so I plan to have blood draw for the IGenex test in late October.
My understanding that IGenex test and the interpretation of the results are a bit controversial, but I first want to get the results and then study exactly what they might or might not mean. Dr. M highly suspects that I have a Lyme and a Lyme co-infection called Babesia. She bases this on the fact that on of my biggest symptoms is extreme shortness of breath, which can be indicative of Babesia (as well as about 1,000 other ailments.)
When I finally get the results, I plan to keep an open mind, but if it's positive, approach it with a healthy dose of skepticism. I suspect that Dr. M sees the world through green goggles--that is, she sees Lyme in just about anything.
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At my appointment, the biggest question on my mind was what can I do to treat my two main symptoms lately: shortness of breath and sniffles -- they always come together now. The answer was a little disappointing. There's not much I can do to treat the symptoms until we figure out the underlying cause. This was a huge disappointment. When it gets bad, all I want is a little relief. Sometimes in this day and age it's hard to believe there's not more we can do to treat certain symptoms.
Hi Patrick,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog by accident. However, just wanted to let you know I was diagnosed with ME in 2012. I kept having negative Lyme tests from 2011-12/2014. In 1/2015, my Labcorp Lyme Western blot was CDC positive. Prior, my immune system was too weak to fight and produce an antibody response. The Lyme testing is notorious for being poor. That is why Virginia has a law that patients must be informed that even if they have a negative test, they could still have Lyme. It is a clinical diagnosis.