Has the possibility of an infectious-disease vector been sufficiently investigated?
I ask because I have Lyme disease (Borrellia burgdorferi - a spirochete, generally tick-borne), which it took a very dedicated primary-care physician several years to diagnose. (The most common screening test, still, is the ELISA, or titre; but it has a very, very high rate of false negatives. I finally was diagnosed when, for the first time, they did a Western Blot test, and it was off-the-charts positive.)
Now, if I stay on my antibiotics, and get plenty of rest, and don't get sick with anything else, my fever stays low, my joints don't get swollen and sore, my hair doesn't fall out, my skin doesn't get dry and fragile and irritable, my vision doesn't get odd (and the "incipient cataracts" I was told I had have gone away), and the tinnitus stays to a dull roar.
This is not to say you have the same illness ... though if you'd like to find out more, the Web site lymenet.org can be helpful, especially the writings of Dr. David Burrascano, who has a few questionnaires on there somewhere (one on environmental risk level, plus one symptoms) that helped me get the test that got me Dx'd and Tx'd ... but there are a number of difficult-to-diagnose infections (mycoplasma, for instance) that can and do cause rheumatoid-like symptoms.
In fact, a small but growing minority of rheumatologists (including my uncle, now retired, but a brilliant diagnostician in his day, who helped many "hopeless" patients) believes that many, if not most, such illnesses are secondary to infection.
Just a thought ...
Glad nothing nasty's turned up in your test results.
no subject
Has the possibility of an infectious-disease vector been sufficiently investigated?
I ask because I have Lyme disease (Borrellia burgdorferi - a spirochete, generally tick-borne), which it took a very dedicated primary-care physician several years to diagnose. (The most common screening test, still, is the ELISA, or titre; but it has a very, very high rate of false negatives. I finally was diagnosed when, for the first time, they did a Western Blot test, and it was off-the-charts positive.)
Now, if I stay on my antibiotics, and get plenty of rest, and don't get sick with anything else, my fever stays low, my joints don't get swollen and sore, my hair doesn't fall out, my skin doesn't get dry and fragile and irritable, my vision doesn't get odd (and the "incipient cataracts" I was told I had have gone away), and the tinnitus stays to a dull roar.
This is not to say you have the same illness ... though if you'd like to find out more, the Web site lymenet.org can be helpful, especially the writings of Dr. David Burrascano, who has a few questionnaires on there somewhere (one on environmental risk level, plus one symptoms) that helped me get the test that got me Dx'd and Tx'd ... but there are a number of difficult-to-diagnose infections (mycoplasma, for instance) that can and do cause rheumatoid-like symptoms.
In fact, a small but growing minority of rheumatologists (including my uncle, now retired, but a brilliant diagnostician in his day, who helped many "hopeless" patients) believes that many, if not most, such illnesses are secondary to infection.
Just a thought ...
Glad nothing nasty's turned up in your test results.