Dr. Diane Mueller explains why standard Lyme disease testing fails: ELISA screening misses 66% of infections, blocking access to confirmatory Western blot tests. Western blots detect antibodies to Borrelia proteins but often test only one or two species, and some bands are nonspecific, making diagnosis unreliable without a Lyme-literate doctor.
Okay, everybody, Dr. Diane, Lyme disease expert here, and we're going to talk about the Western blot test. Now, before we jump down that test and talk about some of the problems with the test, I want to talk about a precursor test to that. So most classically, in conventional medicine, people do start with the test called the ELISA test. The standard of care is to run the elisa. People only move past the ELISA to the secondary test called the western blot, if the ELISA is positive. Now, the problem with this is one study showed that there was a 66% chance of a false negative from the ELISA test. So many people have done this first round of testing, they don't even make it to the second round of testing because they have a negative test and they actually do have Lyme disease. So that's really important to understand. Secondly, the Western blot is a test where what's essentially what's happening is your blood is drawn and they're looking for bands. Bands are basically these proteins of the Lyme bacteria, of the Borrelia bacteria. And we're looking for your immune system's reaction to the proteins. That's how it's being diagnosed. Now, there's a couple different problems with the test. So most testing companies that you see see on the market are really only testing for one, sometimes two species of Borrelia and the proteins associated with them. The problem with that is there's a lot of species of Borrelia, and even though the one that's classically designated as the cause of Lyme is called Borrelia borgdorferi, a lot of these other species basically also cause Lyme disease and the symptoms and all these other things, and they're going to be missed on the standard Western blot. That's really, really important. Now, the other problem with the Western blot is about the interpretation. So there's something called specificity when it comes to lab testing. And that's basically saying when the lab test is done, it is testing and a positive comes back. It is specific to one disease and one disease only. So some of these proteins on the Lyme bacteria are very specific for Lyme disease. Other proteins are nonspecific. Viruses, for example, also share the same proteins. Those are nonspecific. So on the western blot, when we're looking for these proteins, some there's a few proteins that are super, super specific for Lyme that we don't know anything else in research that could cause Lyme or cause these proteins to come up positive other than Lyme. But yet the Standard diagnostics are saying that we have to have three to five depending upon the part of the test. We have to have three, three to five of these particular proteins in order to diagnose Lyme disease. Right. So why, if it's really specific, if we have a protein that's really specific to Lyme, nothing else can really show that it will cause this protein and the antibody response in your body to elevate. Why do we have to have multiple different ways? Right. So that's all about the interpretation. So we have a problem with the first line because the first line of testing has a 66% chance of a false negative according to some studies. We have a problem with the second line of testing because it is not always looking at the all of the different types of tests available or all the different types of Borrelia, the species available. And then we have a problem with the way the tests are interpreted. So there's a lot that can go wrong with the testing and interpretation of Lyme. So the big thing to really understand here, it's really important to work with a Lyme literate doctor. You really want to work with somebody that understands Lyme disease that is really versed in this. Whether you do have Lyme or whether you're thinking that because you have fibro or chronic fatigue or brain fog or chronic digestive issues or autoimmune or whatever. Whether you're interested in looking at Lyme or not, you definitely want to look for somebody that understands proper testing. Now there are better tests on the market. My favorite company is a company called Vibrant Wellness. Their Lyme tests are very, very thorough. They look for many different species. They have a lot of check and balance systems within their tests. They look for co infections, so many different things. And then the final thing, like I said, is you want to be working with a Lyme literate doctor. So us over at my Lymed doc, we are a team of clinicians that are all Lyme literate. We can definitely help you. If you are watching this on YouTube, make sure you subscribe. If you like this, you can look for information about my clinic and booking a free call with one of my team members to see if our approach is right for you. You can find that all in the show notes if you're watching this on YouTube and and I hope this is helpful. I look forward to hearing from you.
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