bart quintana & hensalae

dbwilco,

I don’t know if there’s a difference in treatment between the two or not. I just wanted to say I feel your pain in regards to the test results. When my labs are worse than I expect, it depresses me, too. With memory problems, I tend to forget to worry about it after a few days.

yep, one of the issues with testing for many of us is that most test will only look for these two species and yet there is something like 30 species known at this point ( species not strains ), and around half of these are known to cause disease in humans and the number grows every year.

so as your friend suggests - many of us are infected - but do not get a positive test despite having classic symptoms as most tests are serological and look for specific antibodies for only 2 species ( igenX have a Bart western blot that looks for a few more I think )

a positive diagnosis of something that is making you ill and can be treated is actually a benefit - vs a mystery illness that cannot be identified and has to be addressed on an entirely trial and error basis

to my knowledge, they are all treated the same

good luck!!