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Friday, October 12, 2018

Babesiosis, in color

Symptoms of human babesiosis are frequently crippling and disabling and rival those caused by Lyme borreliosis. Antibody testing is available for 2 species, B. microti and B. duncani. 
The most common species might be: Babesia species (unknown). 

Common symptoms of babesiosis include:  Night sweats, persistent low grade fevers, air hunger and becoming more emotional.  

Treatment can be challenging.  I think we are getting better at eradicating it with changing, complex approaches. 

Blood Giemsa staining frequently allows us a close up look.  We are able to provide the test in our CLIA blood parasitology lab.  All of these slides (images by me) from patient blood samples show pleomorphic variations of the red blood cell parasite/protozoan. 





















4 comments:

Christian said...

Can't you draw a single bacteria and culture/PCR it?

Lyme report: Montgomery County, MD said...

Probably not. Some PCRs claim to be very sensitive and only need a few copies of DNA.
Culture, same. How many? probably varies, number greater than 1 for sure.

Dkhorse20 said...

Im on west coast. Top pathogen according to dna connections, zyto, biofeedback and dramatic response to quinine clinda but cant tolerate clinda orally past 2 days. Will testing thru igenx be reliable? I need md to write rx for iv. Most mds here afraid 2 treat lyme and cos because old head od idsa here. Mepron not best choice 4 me btw.

lyme affected said...


Why don't doctors routinely perform blood slides? Veterinarians do. You can visualize bartonella and other organisms as well; in contrast indirect immunological antibody detection assays are not very useful since bartonella causes immune suppression.