by Dr. Bill Rawls
Posted 7/8/22

Frequent testing for Lyme disease and coinfections may not always be helpful to your recovery. Listen as Dr. Rawls explains some testing limitations and how decreasing symptoms can be a strong indicator that your health is improving. Check out our guide Lyme and coinfections testing here.

Video Transcript

Question: How often do you need to test for Lyme and coinfections when you’re treating?

Tim Yarborough: We’ve got one from Scott asking, how often do you need to get tested for chronic Lyme and coinfections after being treated for a year? What are your thoughts?

Dr. Rawls: Yeah, that’s another myth. This idea that we test and see what you have, and then we bombard you with antibiotics so that we can test you again and see if it’s gone — it’s a myth, a huge misconception.

First of all, our ability to test is poor. So whatever you think you have, multiply it by a factor of somewhere between 10 and a hundred. And that’s actually the variety of microbes that you might have in your tissues. So, we’re just scratching the surface in our testing.

So you start with the fact that our testing is bad. Antibiotics typically don’t work well to treat these kinds of illnesses; that was well-illustrated. Testing to see if the therapy works really makes no sense. So you’re not going to eradicate the bacteria.

What you want to do is restore cellular resilience, suppress the microbes, but so cells can take care of themselves, so cells aren’t vulnerable to invasion by microbes. So these things aren’t spreading. Your immune system can contain them in your body, so they don’t cause you symptoms anymore. The best indicator that you are getting well is when your symptoms resolve. That is better than any lab test made in any lab anywhere in the world. Just resolution of symptoms.

Because if your symptoms are resolving, it means that your cells are recovering from the illness. They’re recovering from being stressed. So if your symptoms resolve, that’s all you need. That’s a very good indicator. Know your body. Know your body. That is the key to this thing.

Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme.
You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey.