Over on the MS board, someone posted that "one of the dilemmas with Lyme is that there can no only be false negatives but also false positives".

Personally, I have never heard a doctor, other than ones not familiar with Lyme, say that. But rather that a positive test can be used to support a clinical diagnosis but a negative one cannot rule lyme out unfortunately.

The person suggested Igenex which is better as far as sensitivity for picking up antibodies(if the px's immune system is capable of generating them) and more bands.

If you are positive on these tests---tests that cannot be used as a sole diagnostic tool because of their insensitivity---
then you are indeed positive.

I realize there are a few cross-reactives(can't recall off the top of my lymebrain) that someone could be exposed to that would cause a positive but it's very rare. and a good doctor would conduct a differential diagnosis to rule it in or out.

Can someone please help clarify?

thank you~
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Can you have MS with no apparent lesions on an MRI?

".....I just want to add that when you go through testing and get a Lyme test, try to do it through IGeneX. Just understand that one of the dilemmas with Lyme is that there can not only be false negatives but also false positives."