Bugs in your blood; what are they?

[jbbaby]

Does anyone have photos or pictures of spirochetes?  I have two different health professionals differing on what is a lyme spirochete and what is not. One calls the little squigglees spirochetes; the other calls them bacteria rods (not spirochetes). The other calls these black circular (fish hook looking) things spirochetes. Everything I've seen on the internet looks like the first, but I am unsure now. Anyone have any confirmation of what is what?

[JackieCalifornia]

Without PCR or other testing to confirm, spiral-shaped bacteria could be other things too, like ....

--    Leptospira species, which causes leptospirosis
--    Borrelia burgdorferi, B. garinii, and B. afzelii, which cause Lyme disease
--    Borrelia recurrentis, which causes relapsing fever
--    Treponema pallidum subspecies which cause treponematoses such as syphilis and yaws
--    Brachyspira pilosicoli and Brachyspira aalborgi, which cause intestinal spirochaetosis

All are in the Spirochaete family.  Per wiki, with pretty pictures and a family tree for the bugz.

[jbbaby]

Both practitioners used a dark fiel microscope.  From the research I've done, I've seen a lot of the pictures of the little worm-like spirally dudes. I haven't see the fish hook looking thing that the second person is calling a spirochete. One has a micorbiology back ground and the other a chemisty and neuralogy backgoround. The both claim their backgrounds qualify them in this area. I am more proned to go with the microbiological background. My wife trusts the other one more. Never the less, when looking at the blood throught the dark field microscope the last time, we saw no wormy squigglees. :). I think the oils are working for us. It may not work for all, but it seems to for us, and it is much less expensive.

[Ricobord]

Lyme spirochetes are not rods.  Rod is a word used to describe other kinds of bacteria, such as Bartonella. If someone is seeing rods in blood, that's not Lyme, it's something else. I find it sad to think a health professional is this uninformed about Lyme.

Lyme is difficult to find in blood. Willy Burgdorfer, the microbiologist who discovered Borrelia Burgdorferi, found it in the midgut contents of a tick, not in human blood. He found by using a specialized backlit microscope.  You just can't see it through a regular one. Run from anyone who says they can see it in your blood through a regular microscope.

It can look like a spiral, a long worm, curled up in a ball (also called "ring form"), clumped in cysts, and intertwined together.  Check out photos from Eva Sapi and Allen MacDonald for fascinating pictures.

[mojogal]

I agree, I never heard of needing a visual confirmation but in all writings doctors call them spirochetes and they can go into a cyst form.

[JackieCalifornia]

PS  not sure why your docs are squabbling over visual representations of Lyme ... the tests are usually enough.

Also, Lyme can go into different forms, balling up into cysts instead of the squiggles in the photo on wiki.

But really, they need visual confirmation??

[JackieCalifornia]

If you go to wikipedia, to the page for 'Lyme disease', then scroll down to a photo on the right side of the page with a bright blue background and white squiggles on it.  Those are spirochetes.