re how to diagnose lyme really gordon banks geb cs pitt edu wrote in article apr ns cc lehigh edu mcg ns cc lehigh edu marc gabriel writes now i m not saying that culturing is the best way to diagnose it s very hard to culture bb in most cases the point is that dr n has developed a feel for what is and what isn t ld this comes from years of experience no serology can match that unfortunately some would call dr n a quack and accuse him of trying to make a quick buck why do you think he would be called a quack the quacks don t do cultures they poo poo doing more lab tests this is lyme believe me i ve seen it many times the lab tests aren t accurate we ll treat it now also is dr n s practice almost exclusively devoted to treating lyme patients i don t know any orthopedic surgeons who fit this pattern they are usually gps no he does not exclusively treat ld patients however in some parts of the country you don t need to be known as an ld specialist to see a large number of ld patients walk through your office given the huge problem of underdiagnosis orthopedists encounter late manifestations of the disease just about every day in their regular practices dr n told me that last year he sent between and patients a week to the ld specialists and he is not the only orthopedists in the town let s say that only people per week actually have ld that means at the very minimum people in our town and immediate area develop late stage manifestations of ld every year add in the folks who were diagnosed by neurologists rheumatologists gps etc and you can see what kind of problem we have no wonder just about everybody in town personally knows an ld patient he refers most patients to ld specialists but in extreme cases he puts the patient on medication immediately to minimize the damage in most cases to the knees gordon is correct when he states that most ld specialists are gps marc marc c gabriel u c box lehigh university
