... many thanks to all for your insights!

Regarding Lyme, off the top of my head I would venture a guess that it constitutes the underlying cause of the majority of all "Idiopathic Small Fiber Neuropathy" reported on this forum.

Concerned readers should do the following:


1) First do the widely-available Lyme "ELISA" test in their doctors office. If it
is positive then they HAVE Lyme, as there are very few false positives.

Unfortunately, if it is negative, they may still likely have Lyme and its
accompanying co-infections, as the ELISA is just a coin-toss (50% accuracy).



2) If negative, they should next locate a "Lyme-Literate Physician" and have
the "Western Blot Test" done by "Igenex" Labs.


Here is their website:

http://www.igenex.com/Website/


The Western Blot will pick up another 20% of cases that were missed by the
ELISA test. However, it will still miss 30% of positive cases as it did with
me.




3) The game changer in Lyme testing became available only in 2012, and is the revolutionary blood culture test (the "gold standard") that also finally gave me a definative diognosis nearly eight years late (I was infected in 2004).


Here is the website again for "Advance Labs" in Philadelphia that does the test:

http://www.advanced-lab.com/



Warm regards,

David