A common question, most likely a reason why you have found this website. Well, bad news - there is no way to find out with 100% accuracy if someone got Lyme. It can be guessed, of course, with more or less accuracy - but it's only guess. Somatic symptoms always describe SOME disease, no matter how hard they look like Lyme. It can be even no disease, just a weakness of immune system which results in chronic infections.

Keep in mind, that late Lyme symptoms are just like symptoms of at least 50 other diseases, mostly common ones. It's a known rule that when one reads about a disease then he nearly always finds oneself a victim of at least 80% symptoms. And there is the whole businnes running only in purpose of selling medicines for such "patients".

Before you waste money on tests:

- Make sure that your diet is more or less OK. Lack of vitamins or minerals can result in lyme-like symptoms. In case of doubts, it's possible to make tests for B12 vitamin, magnesius and so on.

- Is your life cycle human-like? If you spend 10 hours/day staring at computer, drinking coffee, cola and smoking cigarettes, it's not Lyme what you should care about.

- No allergy? Are you sure? Try IgE general test. Check if nothing in your bedroom can be toxic - it can be - for example - some kind of fungus, or even dust. Easy test - make short holidays and see if you feel better.

- No candida? Check again. An antibiotic therapy can be fatal with active Candida overgrowth.

- Couple of tests for auto-immunologic diseases and arthisis might be useful. These diseases give exactly the same symptoms as Lyme, and trust me - they are way more common.

- Some people are born stupid, some with a weak defence against diseases. Maybe you are one of them? (second group, hehe)

- It's very likely that you have some kind of neurosis. Check your head. Carefully :)

Did that help? No? Then IgM + IgG Western Blot.

A positive IgM means nearly 100% sure active Lyme. IgG positive / negative? It shows nothing, just a probability. In case of positive IgG test, you can - without a big risk - try therapy with light antibiotics. In case of Lyme a herx should appear, and positive IgM result (antibiotic will "reveal" bacterium to our white blood cells, causing IgM reaction). Of course cerebrospinal fluid should be used to tests - it's way more sensitive than the normal blood western blot. Generally, the blood test rarely detect neuroboreliosis, while the cerebrospinal fluid test might miss normal Lyme.

Again, don't panic. At least 10% of population got at least one band in IgG class. Moreover, in some countries or areas, 10-20% population got FIVE bands, and like 50% at least one band. It's like tuberculosis, around 50% of us had a contact with bacterium that cause this disease, but our defence was stronger, and tuberculosis was healed - without antibiotics, without a "hidden stage". Just healed. With Lyme this's similar - spirochetes try to hide in joints, but are devastated by locally produced white blood cells, new antigens are detected and attacked at nearly the same time as Lyme develop them, and when the bacterium hides really well - it can survive, till it tries to breed. Then it is slayed with no mercy. Rememeber, Lyme is not syphilis, it's pretty old disease, and we learned how to deal with it. Unluckily, some of us have leak in the defence system.

Therapy is a plain and easy way to identify the disease. It's always the herx reaction if active lyme is treated with antibiotics (unless it's an antibiotic - resistant one). Just make sure this's not a normal reaction against antibiotic. It's also common that after antibiotics our white blood cells start to recognize the disease, which means that the IgM test will lead to positive results. Of course the IgM is still no 100% sure diagnosis, but good enough to be sure. .