Mat Test For Lyme Disease

A health care professional will take a blood sample from a vein in your arm using a small needle.

Mat test for lyme disease.

The most common blood tests for lyme. The lyme disease test from letsgetchecked analyzes your blood sample for reactivity to borrelia igg and igm antibodies borrelia is the bacteria carried by some ticks that causes lyme disease. Cdc currently recommends a two step testing process for lyme disease. For testing for neurological lyme disease you must send paired csf 0 5 ml and serum 0 5 ml samples taken.

Three other tests that may be used to diagnose lyme disease are polymerase chain reaction pcr antigen detection and culture testing. According to the centers for disease control and prevention if the eia test shows negative for the antibodies no further testing is needed. For routine lyme disease serological testing you must send a serum sample 0 5 ml. Both steps are required and can be done using the same blood sample.

Pcr multiplies a key portion of dna from the lyme bacteria so that it can be detected. Because of that your symptoms and the time you spend outdoors are key to a diagnosis. You may feel a little sting when the needle goes in or out. The eia test also known as an elisa test which stands for enzyme linked immunoassay is what s typically used to screen for lyme disease by detecting antibodies for b.

These tests allow physicians to visualize the reaction between antibodies in an infected person s blood to specific antigens or parts of the bacteria that causes lyme disease. For a lyme disease blood test. They are called direct tests because they detect the bacteria not just your immune response to it. The two most common diagnostic tests for lyme disease are the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay elisa and the western blot.

Some tests check for lyme disease but they re not precise. If this first step is negative no further testing is recommended.