Lyme disease is diagnosed clinically based on symptoms, objective physical findings (such as erythema migrans, facial palsy, or arthritis), a history of possible exposure to infected ticks, as well as serological tests.
When making a diagnosis of Lyme disease, health care providers should consider other diseases that may cause similar illness. Not all patients with Lyme disease will develop the characteristic bulls-eye rash, and many may not recall a tick bite. Laboratory testing is not recommended for persons who do not have symptoms of Lyme disease.
Because of the difficulty in culturing Borrelia bacteria in the laboratory, diagnosis of Lyme disease is typically based on the clinical exam findings and a history of exposure to endemic Lyme areas. The EM rash, which does not occur in all cases, is considered sufficient to establish a diagnosis of Lyme disease even when serologies are negative. Serological testing can be used to support a clinically suspected case but is not diagnostic. Clinicians who diagnose strictly based on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Case Definition for Lyme may be in error, since the CDC explicitly states that this definition is intended for surveillance purposes only and is “not intended to be used in clinical diagnosis.
Diagnosis of late-stage Lyme disease is often difficult because of the multi-faceted appearance which can mimic symptoms of many other diseases. For this reason, Lyme has often been called the new “great imitator”. Lyme disease may be misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), lupus, or other autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases.
I used ingenix for the lyme a year and half ago after elisa came back negative. Igenix came back positive in igm, but neg in igg.My symptoms have been for 3 years so current doctor was puzzled by that & is re doing the test one half year later. I did have a herpes outbreak when I did the test & wonder if that caused it to come back positive.
I don’t have fever or swollen joints or flu, but have numb/burn skin, twitches & can’t sleep at all without meds which only give me 3-4 hour sleep. So, I’m trying to determine if I have lyme or not. I did 4 months of oral antibiotics, but didn’t have a herx, though headache & neck pain diminished.
What I’m writing to ask is: can herpes flair give positive results? Also, what tests are used for co-infections? One doctor used Fry, but it had negative results on all blood strains, then on photo it had an arrow pointing to a small dot, saying either a bacteria or bartonella. I don’t have most symptoms of bartonella like heel pain or fever, but I do have sleep problem and twitches…. thank you for any input -geraldine