It is easy to run a test to see if it is a vaccine titer or a disease titer. Doxy is about as cheap as it gets anitbiotic wise.
I’m in a heavily tick infested area of Maryland - and my dog spends a lot of time running through tall grasses at various farms where I know ticks are bad. I took her in thinking she had a UTI, and she had a high white count in her urine, but it didn’t culture for an infection. Maybe the problem was the Lyme.
The first time I ever saw it in a dog was about 17 years ago, when my friend’s dog was diagnosed with it. She was in such bad shape she was practically paralyzed. The Maryland vets didn’t know what the heck she had, but then one of them asked my friend if she had done any traveling - yeah, she’d spent a month near Lyme, CT.
I have to go in to pick up the doxy, so I will check about a vaccine titer. Thanks for the tip.
Maryland is now a high Lyme area unfortunately, as is Southern PA. And just so you can feel really great, Lepto is on the rise particularly in Balto Co.
thanks everyone. I can always count on the straight skinny from the COTHers
there’s this, which matches what most of us observe in the real-world: lots of dogs test positive for Lyme exposure and never get sick (it focuses on Bernese because they are thought to have a susceptibility to the disease). Even the beagles artificially infected in the lab had a fairly low rate of displaying overt symptoms- they seem to usually treat the lab dogs with steroids to impair their immune systems in order to boost infection uptake/increase the odds of getting symptoms in order to use such dogs as study models.
BMC Vet Res. 2009 May 8;5:18.
Follow-up of Bernese Mountain dogs and other dogs with serologically diagnosed Borrelia burgdorferi infection: what happens to seropositive animals?
Gerber B, Haug K, Eichenberger S, Reusch CE, Wittenbrink MM.
Source
Clinic for Small Animal Internal Medicine, Vetsuisse Faculty University of Zurich, Winterthurstrasse 260, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland. bgerber@vetclinics.uzh.ch
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Data on the long-term outcome of B. burgdorferi infections in adult dogs are sparse. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether Bernese Mountain dogs with serological evidence of natural B. burgdorferi infection more often develop signs such as lameness, azotemia or proteinuria during a follow-up period of 2.5 to 3.0 years. Seropositive Bernese Mountain dogs were compared to seronegative Bernese Mountain dogs and to seropositive and seronegative control dogs of other breeds. Dogs included in a previous study on the prevalence of antibodies against B. burgdorferi in Bernese Mountain dogs were re-evaluated. Antibodies against B. burgdorferi were determined using an ELISA with a whole-cell sonicate as antigen and results were confirmed using a Western blot assay.
RESULTS:
Fifty-three Bernese Mountain dogs and 30 control dogs were re-evaluated. Re-evaluation was performed between 2.5 and 3.0 years (median 2.7 years) after the first assessment.The age of the dogs at the second evaluation ranged from 3 to 11 years (median 6 years). There were no significant differences with regard to poor general condition or lameness between the first and the second evaluation. At the first evaluation 22 (42%) of the Bernese Mountain dogs and 11 (37%) of the control dogs were considered positive for antibodies against B. burgdorferi. At the second evaluation 25 (47%) of the Bernese Mountain dogs and 12 (40%) of the control dogs were considered positive; 69% of the dogs showed the same serological result at both examinations and 31% were seroconverted or seroreverted. During the first examination, azotemia was diagnosed in 6 Bernese Mountain dogs and during the second examination in 11 Bernese Mountain dogs. No control dogs had azotemia in this study. In seropositive dogs there was no increase in lameness or signs of renal disease over time.
CONCLUSION:
It may be concluded that antibodies against B. burgdorferi determined by whole cell ELISA and confirmed by Western blot were neither associated with the development of lameness nor with signs of renal disease like azotemia or proteinuria in dogs observed over a period of 2.5 to 3.0 years.
What test is “easy to distinguish” between vaccine and natural infection? most lyme tests detect the presence of antibodies against lyme- the vaccine induces the formation of antibodies.
Of course the best test for infection is a PCR test for the presence of the actual organism, but few vets will run such tests.
