Which test?

[congo74]

Hi,
I'm going to take a test for Lyme disease through a private company (using Labcorp) and they have the following tests available. As you can see there is a huge difference in price and therefore my question is: is the $60 test sufficient? why would I choose the other expensive test?
Thank you in advance!

1)
Lyme Disease Antibodies, Including Reflex to Western Blot on Positives, $450
Includes: Borrelia Antibodies. Index results for total antibodies and IgM positives; also includes Western blot analysis and result interpretation.


2) Lyme Disease, Serum, Western Blot, $60
Includes: Borrelia burgdorferi Antibodies.Western blot analysis and interpretations for IgG- and for IgM-specific antibodies.

[congo74]

Thanks Patsy. I also have the option of a Lyme PCR test. Do you have any experience with that one?

[patsy10]

My interpretation is #1 is the standard screening test (ELISA).  If the test is positive then the western blot is done automatically.  This is the standard testing for lyme that most non-lyme specialists order.  I just wonder how much it costs if the test is negative and no further testing is done.  It should be a lot less.  The ELISA is not very reliable and misses a large percentage of lyme cases.  #2 is the western blot in itself.

I think this is what it means but I'm not sure.

[wonko]

I'm not really sure what the difference is from these descriptions.  But before you go through Lapcorp, you may want to look up IgeneX, they are a specialty lab in Palo Alto that many Lyme literate physicians use.  

They have a website that describes their available tests.  They test for more bands on the Western blot, and give you a full report including results on all bands.  (Some other labs only report "positive" or "negative" by CDC standards, without actually listing what, if any, bands are + or IND.)