Anyone use Advanced Laboratory Services to test for Borellia?

[roxie60]

I am curious if anyone here has used and what the results were.

here is article discussing this lab

http://www.iowalymedisease.com/lyme-news.html

 

[roxie60]

I called Advanced Labs. They have two tests. First is a 'poly' tesg that cultures for a few strains of borellia. If positive then can have a 'mono'test for bergdorferi. The firsg test is $595. If the 2nd test is added later it is additional $300. After 10 daysif positive then culturing stops and dr, patient informed, pictur of result taken. If not positive at end of 10 days condiderec iindeterminate (not positive but not negative) and culture is continued for 8 more weeks, final detefmination made af that point.

They hafe a web site, I have not seen it yet. The recommend geing off abx 30 days begore take blood sample that has to be shipped bt next day. Hiwever she said that is between patient and dr if go off abx cause they know people might ge concerned about relapse. That is what I recall from the phone conversation.

 

[duncan]

I too have been in touch with them. Barbara Johnson pretty much slammed them a while back, if I remember correctly. They are attracting a lot of flak from IDSA types. Last I heard two universities were trying to validate their culture test, but no results reported yet.

 

[roxie60]

Not a surprise, Barbara doesnt want legitimate competition to her financial interests.....how does a person like her who blatenetly biased against a segment of the population get a public job supposedly representing the public?????

 

[duncan]

Well, she's retired now I think.

But I fear that won't put an end to the possible conflicts of interest at play in some govt agencies tasked with monitoring and successfully treating TBDs. Actually, I should have stopped with monitoring/diagnosing those diseases since there are currently no Lyme treatment trials at the NIH. No Late Stage Lyme studies either. So the focus seems to be on better diagnostic tests. And when one examines who has patents in this area, or relationships of some sorts with the labs that offer these diagnostics, eh, it gets kind of interesting.

 

[roxie60]

The NIH is sure funding a lot of studies. I had to laugh or I would cry at some of them they consider important to TBDs. Did not know that about Barbera.....Im sure whatever beach she is on she is still trashing the lyme loonies

 

[duncan]

I'm pretty sure she was part of that email drama with Phil Baker and others.

Yeah, NIH trials. Very distressing. I would ask whoever might listen (Marques?) why there are no Late Stage Lyme studies. With all the people who were not diagnosed early, who never received recommended treatment - and accordingly don't satisfy PTLDS criteria - with all those individuals with Late Stage Lyme credentials, how can there not be serious efforts underway on a governmental level to reel in those who are the sickest, characterize them, and at least attempt to treat?

Could it be that by acknowledging them, by extension the agencies would be risking demonstrating to the world that conventional treatments fall far short, far too often?

 

[roxie60]

Preach it brother!!!!!

 

[roxie60]

Im getting sick and tired of everything they cant explain being labeled a syndrome.

 

[Hip]

The CDC issued a warning about using unapproved testing such as Advanced Laboratory Services, due to concerns that it may produce false positive results.

CDC recommends two-tier serologic testing for the diagnosis of Lyme disease. Two-tier testing consists of an FDA-cleared enzyme immunoassay (EIA) that, if positive or equivocal, is followed by an FDA-cleared immunoblot test, commonly known as a "Western blot" test. Results are considered positive only when both the EIA and Western blot are positive.
Source: here.

However, with the CDC recommended tests being more conservative, some argue that they may miss some cases of Lyme, meaning that these patients will go untreated.

 

[duncan]

My Lyme doctor - an IDSA supporter - recommended I try the ALS culture test. I declined because it had yet to be validated, and I'd already experienced the XMRV testing debacle. I did not want to go through that again.

But that was decidedly not a strike against the ALS test per se. My understanding is the validation effort is still underway, with two universities involved.

Relative to the CDC's specific reservations concerning ALS...eh, there may be some merit behind the relatively heavy numbers of European species that showed up in US patients.

Personally, I balance those considerations with questions like who has a horse in this race.

 

[globalpilot]

I am curious if anyone here has used and what the results were.

here is article discussing this lab

http://www.iowalymedisease.com/lyme-news.html

Yes, I have, it was negative. Western Blot was negative per CDC and slightly positive per Lyme doctors.

 

[LHCTom]

Here are my views on the CDC Assessment of the Culture.

http://puurelyrandom.wordpress.com/

Whether it works or not, a properly designed culture is the most straightforward path to detremining if Lyme persists. For the CDC scientists to imply the culture is bad because of contamination is bad science. There was contamination in some of the nested PCR testing but that says nothing about whether the culture is ok. It just says one of the validation paths using the pyrG gene sequence for wild strain evidence did not work. But all the other tests indicate Sapi may be on to something. As a spirochete moves form a tick to a human host to human host dissemination, its transcriptome changes dramatically so it can survive in the new hostile environment. The transcriptome is the state of gene transcription which is the main method living creatures use to adapt to environments as the genome is fixed and only a template of what is possible. The transcriptome is the control genes state and may very well make spirochetes require a new diffferent culture medium and conditions other than the 1990's BSK variants.

Anyone interested in Lyme needs to first answer the question of persistence. There is evidence both ways but the mainstream researchers have almost stopped trying to explore persistence. The only way one will know the direction for chronic Lyme treatment is to know if its persistence or something else. Its not possible to prove a negative so proving persistence is not ocurring is impossible. However if a culture is able to grow spirochetes found in huuman fluids after dissemination, it will be absolute proof persistence does ocurr. Its simply bad science for the CDC to publish dishonest scientific articles as opposed to investigating whether something like the transcriptome has caused the original BSK to no longer provide for the spirochetes needs. Its actually good old fashioned experimental science or state of the art transcriptome analysis but instead they do nothing.

 

[physicsstudent13]

what exactly is the neurological and nerve damage from Lyme's disease? does it physically burrow and destroy your brain cells? I think that you can do preventative treatment with 30 days of doxycycline