That's kind of crazy. I've asked physicians at top hospitals to refer me to a pathology lab that can do basic pathogen discovery, to no avail. You did it in your garage.
you cannot teach people something that they believe they already know
fortunately, there is not much you cannot teach yourself these days, and it need not be that expensive if you are willing to do the work
in my case it would have been easier if i had simply purchased a new microscope for around £300- as at least the equipment would have worked out of the box - but i would still have had a steep learning curve in working out how to use it and developing the skills and knowledge to know what i was looking at ( many people believe everything they see are bacteria etc)
I'm interested in this T Lab and will do more research. I'm really trying to hang on to my faith in institutional medicine, but the FDA is a stick in the mud, actively disinterested in infectious disease research and treatment, Showing Igenex, Galaxy and Infectolab results to hospital based doctors is like kryptonite to the conversation. It seems like the door is slammed shut on alternative labs, casting them to the realm of fringe medicine and quackery with no path to legitimacy. Can their results and interpretations be trusted? Who knows - the FDA apparently doesn't want the question answered.
there is a huge amount of ignorance around in conventional medicine circles when it comes to chronic infections. they have simply not read or learned from the mainstream published peer reviewed research done over the last 40 years on these conditions - this is critical as these are all emerging human pathogens so 90% of what is useful has been learned in the last few decades -
but clinical practice is typically 30 years behind the research - and this is the major reason for the schism in beliefs between lyme literate doctors who treat these conditions and do keep breast of the research - and the other infectious disease doctors on the other side of the argument.
this ignorant defence of the status quo has always been there - they called Louis Pasteur insane and locked him up for talking about microscopic organisms that made people sick - but he was also right all along.
of course there is also over diagnosis on the part of some functional/alternative medicine providers - and some unscrupulous companies specifically target the chronically ill with "miracle cures" or at least unproven treatments . the world has always been thus.
on top of this there are interest groups with huge financial interests lobbying institutions like the FDA to make dictates and policy in their favour - so we have considerable muddying of the waters.
i would simply ignore what the FDA say on this topic and instead rely on the published research.
the way to look at tests - is not so much by the lab that did them - eg Igenex or Infectolabs - as most of these use recognised test kits manufactured by established manufacturers - but by the test technology itself - and thereby understand the story of each individual test in terms of its strengths and weaknesses, sensitivity, specificity - and thereby its overall diagnostic value in your particular case - most of this is documented - if its not - i would say either use a different test that is, or contact the lab to get answers to the questions. each test type has very different limitations
Partially for this reason, I'm unwilling to conclusively say I have bartonella until it's caught red-handed. Plus, functional docs want make a diagnosis for everything that produces a single IGG antibody. including any food or mold toxin, which doesn't help their credibility. Lastly, I have an RPR antibody - normally a syphilis screen, although thankfully I am specifically negative for that disease - which tracks the severity of my symptoms. I can't find anything that says bartonella produces a positive RPR titer, so I'm left searching for more answers.
serology _ tests that detect antibodies to pathogens - are known to be severely flawed in chronic bacterial infections -
chronic bacterial infections dysregulate the immune response in at least 2 different ways
- the infection itself interferers with the hosts ability to make the expected antibodies - by suppressing certain immune functions, as part of a survival mechanism - or
- alternately in its efforts to clear an infection the host may make many different antibodies causing false positive results to other infections- related to the actual organism present - or others that app[ear totally unrelated. or antibodies to host tissues leading to auto-immunity.
this makes serology highly unreliable and likely as you say to create many false negatives and false positives and as a result interpretation becomes difficult
there are better tests out there - each with their pro's and cons but serology is the lowest rung on the ladder - its cheap - that's why its still used - and the people that do not believe in chronic infections see no need to anything better, due to their circular reasoning and so the cycle continues
galaxy diagnostics has the best published validation study for any bartonella blood test yet documented
its called "Bartonella triple draw culture and Digital Droplet ePCR"
this is your best bet at a commercial test to detect it
after that there is a bartonella multispecies immunoblot from
igenex ( still serology - but many more antigens so much better diagnostic value )
Tlabs is good also - but i think can only be accessed by your practitioner / not sure - best to check access
i do not have a practitioner - and j have tested negative for bartonella via serology and LTT tests - so elected to do the work myself
ref RPR antibodies -
bartonella is very closely related to rickettsia so i would not be at all surprised if it can cause RPR antibodies
see below
"What might affect my test results?
Your test results may be false-positive for many reasons. These include pregnancy, IV drug use, tuberculosis, chronic liver disease, recent vaccines, or inflammation of the heart lining or valves (endocarditis). You may also have a false-positive result if you have one of a number of infections. These include rickettsial infections such as typhus or Rocky Mountain spotted fever."
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/ency...id=167&contentid=rapid_plasma_reagin_syphilis
however Lyme disease is closely related to syphilis and some sources state that it may cause RPR antibodies also
"Some potential infections that could cause a false positive include:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322204#results
(i just grabbed some quick links )
in general in the chronic Lyme doctor community - the best respected doctors - the ones that have been practicing for 20 or 30 years like Horowitz and Jemsek - believe most cases are in fact polymicrobial infections consisting a number of pathogens usually including Lyme disease, bartonella and babesia as the main driving infections - but other smaller players often being present making the patient more ill and harder to treat. treatments targeting these three are the most successful in chronic cases.
this may simply be because if you treat for spirochetes, small intracellular bacteria ( bartonella) and single celled parasites - then you cover most basses and the patient gets better
in my case it has helped me considerably to know what i was dealing with
Lyme with a high degree of confidence, Bartonella definitively,
i am making progress by treating focussed on lyme and bartonella - but its a long treatment course with gradual slow improvement - not a few weeks or even months. so again its helpful to know with certainty what you are facing as otherwise one might be tempted to give up or simply conclude it cannot be that. 
