I have been having strang symptoms for over 3 years now. I tough it was benzo withdrawal for the longest time. A friend of mine convinced me to get tested for lyme. I got tested twice with my DR. I live in Canada, they were both negative. Then I heard those tests were not reliable so she convinced me to get tested with Igenex. Wow what a process this was! I had to pay 600$ out of pocket! The results came back and I was even more confused. My IFA was 80, that indicated positive. My IGM and IGG were all negative, but I did have indicative bands and some positive bands. Igenex recommended I do the 31 isotope test, another 200$! This test came back negative. I saw 2 naturopaths, one said I have lyme, the other called Igenex and spoke to a dr on staff, who said she didn’t think I had it but I should do the urine test! I don’t have a penny to my name, I am broke! I don’t know what to think , reading other lyme boards, if you have ha few positive bands, you are positive! I’m so confused!
Questions
- Is Igenex reliable or not,?
- What is IFA? And why would mine be 80 if I didn’t have lyme?
- I don’t know what to do at this point, so confused,
Thank you
The IFA is simplly an assay off antibodies in yourblood. Its used for many diseases as a screening test negative means negative but positive means maybe.The sensitivity of the ELISA and the IFA (immunoflourescence assay) vary considerably, with estimates ranging from 55% to 90% depending upon the clinical manifestations and duration of infection. All the IFA test is looking for is antibodies. Its used for many diseases It is functionally insensitive for Lyme-specific antibodies and displays considerable cross-reactions with antibodies to other spirochetal organisms.....
BUT all that being said a positive test (yours was at 80) means you have antibodies to a spirochetal organism. maybe its lyme, maybe you had mono as teen, or maybe you are part of the roughly 30%-40% of the population spirochetal organisms living in their intestines and will test positive. A negative test means you don't have lyme. A positive test means you MIGHT have lyme (or another infection) so they do some additional tests in the case of Lyme that would be a Western Blot.
There are multiple "bands" but only a few are lyme specific and then only in certain combinations. Basically (and this is way over simplified) all the bands are is a series of dyes applied to a serum sample.
Which leads us to Igenex. They test a whole bunch more bands when they do a western blot They USED to claim that these additional bands meant Lyme. They don't anymore as there was never any evidence that these bands were Lyme Specific, rather they leave that up to the "doctor" I use that term lightly.
My first requirement for a doctor is that he be a Scientist NOT a philosopher. As different as those two may be there is a huge difference. Until science developed testing to create verifiable, testable, and repeatable data what we commonly call science was philosophy.
The entire world of Lyme Literacy is philosophy. Their explanations make sense for the horrible things happening to folks. We want to believe it we want to hope they can fix it. The problem is that little of what they do results in verifiable, testable, and repeatable data. If you take an Igenex test to 10 different paractitioners you will get multiple interpretations because in order to keep from getting shut down as multiple other independent labs have, they no longer interpret all the data (they offer possible explanations)