Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Why is Lyme Controversial

"One main reason why lyme is so controversial is because the doctors don’t agree on how lyme should be treated. The mainstream doctors believe that lyme takes about one to two months to treat and if you still have symptoms of lyme, you don’t actually have lyme anymore it must be some other disease or it is all in your head. The select few doctors, normally LLMDs (Lyme Literate Medical Doctors), believes that it takes at least six months to treat lyme and if you still have symptoms then the lyme is being difficult to treat or a unknown coinfection is not being treated, or a hormone problem has not yet been taken care.

Another reason it is so controversial is the diagnosis part. Your average doctor believes that tests such as the ELISA is accurate enough to diagnose whether you have it or not. If they do end up having you get the western blot test (the most accurate), they want five bands positive to diagnose lyme disease which I think is FDA approved. LLMDs, for the most part, believe that lyme disease should be clinically diagnosed. They do use the western blot test and believe that it take about two bands to have lyme, but if you don’t get two bands positive it doesn’t mean you don’t have lyme. They do not believe in using tests like ELISA, because they are only about 65% accurate. For these two reasons, LLMDs are hard to find because they get bashed for they methods."

2 comments:

  1. Julie, it is so frustrating when doctors don't agree, whether it's for Lyme Disease or FOD treatment or any other health issue you and your loved ones are dealing with. I'm glad you're making this page to educate the rest of us who have not yet been effected by Lyme or only peripherally. I totally support you, and I hope your treatment is successful SOON!!! Senidng hugs,
    Taryn

    ReplyDelete