Help Jana heal from neurological Lyme disease

Hello! Thank you for visiting this fundraiser. My name is Ivana Milenković, and I am raising money for my dear friend Jana Mitić. She is a violinist, educator, violin teacher, and a creative and kind person who loves music, tennis, long walks and spending time with friends. Jana has late-stage neurological Lyme disease and co-infections. She’s had it for 7+ years - undiagnosed; unfortunately, the disease progressed fast in the last two years. She went from being an energetic, hardworking, social person to a housebound one because of the pain, constant spasms and other disease manifestations that brought up continuous exhaustion and fatigue. Lyme stopped her career, and Jana hasn’t been able to work or do basic everyday activities because of her symptoms.

Most Lyme treatments are not covered by insurance, so patients typically pay over $500 for frequent tests, medications, and complementary therapies. After years of such expenses and her inability to work, Jana and her mom’s financial resources are severely strained.

These treatments will help her regain her health. They will also allow her to go back to playing music and start spreading awareness by sharing her story so that other people can prevent this illness and avoid this long and painful struggle.

Jana’s story

Jana started experiencing some of the symptoms early in high school. Still, due to her chosen profession as a violinist, she ascribed her pains to long practicing hours and excessive physical exertion. Later during her university years, she developed much more muscular pains in her back, peripheral neuropathy along with pins and needles stabbing feelings in her hands, and loss of muscle strength. All of this made her unable to finish her undergraduate studies in time. She did a lot of physical therapy and B vitamin supplementation, which helped a little at the time, but only to an extent. She finished her undergraduate and master studies later than her peers, but she still managed to live a relatively normal life.

In 2020, her symptoms got a lot worse, with multiple visits to ER but still without a proper diagnosis. Neurological symptoms developed rapidly, with tachycardia, dizziness, weakness, lightheadedness, muscle twitching, intense debilitating muscle pains and constant gut issues. All this brought along insomnia and cognitive problems. Finally, in the summer of 2021, she got diagnosed with late-stage neurological Lyme disease. By this time, Jana was housebound, unable to do house chores and walk or work on most days. Her Lyme has also reactivated Epstein - Barr virus, which has caused numerous consequences and thyroid problems. The longer a person has undiagnosed Lyme, the harder it is to treat. Lyme goes deep into cells, tissues, and mitochondria and can be destructive to every system in the body, including the heart, nervous system, and brain.

During the summer of 2022 she went to the Lyme clinic in Poland for the first time and treatments started successfully, but she needed at least one year of treatments to achieve her healing.

Jana needs our help to complete her treatments. She is fighting these symptoms daily, but she is a fighter and a very optimistic and happy individual. Jana is inspired to create more music. Hopefully, one day, she will be able to continue playing her violin and running and doing sports like she used to. She also worked as a violin teacher and wants to return to her classes as soon as possible because she loves teaching and sharing knowledge with her students.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please give what you can, and know your help is much appreciated.

All the donations will be given to Jana Mitić.