What is your NK cell function?

U know for some reason i saw a similar thing happened towards the end of my year on ampligen. My baseline was 8 in Jan '12 and 4 towards the end of the year. U can imagine my frustration.

healthy people have NK Cell Function of 60 - 80.

My son doesn't have ME/CFS but has another autoimmune disease. His NK cell function is similarly low, like mine. Not sure if it'd due to the disease or the meds he's on to treat it but makes me wonder if NK cell function being low is solely limited to ME/CFS. What Dr K. has told me leads me to believe it might be more common in many auto-immune diseases than they were originally thinking.

Might explain why so many people with auto-immune diseases go on to develop cancers etc.

@Ruthie24 is dr K dr Kogelnik?

@vli- yes. I can imagine your frustration, especially after being on ampligen! Argh!

That kind of autoimmune illness in the family is definitely worrying along with ME/CFS. I'm glad to hear your girls are doing fine so far. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Not sure if and when its going to happen but griffith uni in australia are going to do a study comparing cfs/me with other auto immune illnesses comparing the difference between nk bright cells and nk dim cells, the reason for this is that there are a few illness that have low nk function and think that maybe differentiating between bright and dim nk function may be different and be a good diagnostic test for cfs me.

So although nk function can be low in cfs/me as well as other autoimmune disorders, bright and dim nk function maybe the different factor??

So is this absolutely classic with the NK function test for us.I don't know if I can get this tested in nz.
@heapsreal thanks for that! Our ME organisation put in our news letter that we can be in a biobank thing here in nz for Griffith uni and and email address was provided. Thinking about emailing and seeing what they might want/need for this.

I'll count on you to keep us posted when you find out.

Could someone please tell me where I should get my NK cell count and function tested? Is this something I can get done through LabCorp or is it a specialty lab?

I think any lab will do it, i had mine done at quest. You just need a doctor to order it

I wouldn't get this test at Labcorp right now. They changed something in how they code this test for billing over the past year and its causing it to get rejected by almost every insurance. Labcorp send it to Viracor or Focus anyhow, so if your doctor wants to order it, just have it drawn and sent to them directly.

intereting Helios,

I had wondered if there was a link to low NK function and LYme - that would make a lot of sense

Ally

NK cell count is done by many labs, but I think the NK cell functional assay is only done a few places. I've been told Mayo does it. I get mine done at Dr Klimas' lab at NOVA Southeastern University.

I had mine done by Quest labs.

Have you had issues with insurance paying for the NK function assay done at NOVA? As stated above, I have had issues with the way labcorp does it and bills for it, so I'm looking for an alternative.

No, no problems yet. So far we've had minimal problems with payments for everything from NOVA, except maybe phone appts. I'm not sure if the insurance pays all or just a part of the bill for labs. Hubby does the paperwork these days. No one would want me handling financial issues with my cognitive dysfunction.

ETA: One thing we've found matters a LOT with our insurance is whether the bill comes directly from the doc or lab (insurance pays easily) or whether we submit it to the insurance company (they won't pay). Individual submissions get a lot more picky scrutiny, while doctor/lab submission get mostly rubber-stamped, we think.

Quest Labs would be the easiest place for me to get it done. Who's your doctor? I'm wondering if it's an ME/CFS specialist who's OK with Quest.

Anyone else have an opinion on using Quest Labs for NK cells count and function?

My doctor is Dr. Enlander in New York.

Oh, good! OK, so if he's using Quest, then Quest is OK. Thanx, Nielk!