Help Steve Defeat Lyme
Donation protected
Steve Wiebe, his wife Linda, and their three children (Ember 9, Thomas 7, and Jillian 4) live in Portage La Prairie, MB. A few weeks ago, God led us to learn about some health issues Steve has been battling for around 10 years now. It took us by surprise since Steve is such an active member in our community and with his family/friends. Of course if you know Steve, he’s a quiet, humble guy and keeps his personal issues close to heart. Up until recently, he has managed to do so but as his symptoms continue to advance and worsen, it has become hard to continue with day-to-day basic activities.
In December of 2020, his Lyme disease test came back positive and he finally had a diagnosis he could work with: Chronic Lyme Disease.
Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy here in Canada. It is a very expensive and time consuming battle and there really is no concrete path to take. With great hesitancy and against every prideful bone in their bodies, Steve and his wife Linda have allowed us to launch this Go Fund Me page so that they can share their story and bring awareness to the struggles many Canadians face with Lyme.
As a community, I would love if we could all pray for them as they continue on their quest for treatment and healing. Help them spread awareness about Lyme Disease and the limitations many Canadians find in seeking answers and treatment. If you have the capacity, I kindly ask you to consider donating to help them pursue the costly treatment options. Any path they choose will be challenging physically, mentally, and emotionally and will require Steve to take time off from work and time away from family. They will need community support more than ever.
Steve would love to get back to doing the things he loves: hockey, x country skiing, road cycling, and golf. He is an awesome teacher and has taught the kids to enjoy all those things and just wants to be able to create more memories like these with his kids again. It’s progressed so much that he is unable to shoot a puck anymore because of the extreme pain that it causes. It has come to the point where he is willing to do what needs to be done as the day to day pain and symptoms he experiences are becoming more frequent and unbearable.
They are grateful that their Doctor believes that Steve will be able to have his life back with treatments. Treatments are not covered here in Canada by provincial or federal healthcare plans and costs are the sole responsibility of the patient.
Unfortunately, costs of these treatments are between $5000-$6000/month for a min 7-8 months. The clinics out of country also start at $30,000-$50,000. This is a huge financial burden for any family.
I found it would be best to have Steve and Linda’s journey with Lyme below in their own words:
Steve and Linda’s Lyme Disease Journey:
“The first symptom we saw was Fall of 2010. One of Steve’s knees became extremely swollen for no reason. A few weeks after that, the other knee also became swollen. This caused severe pain and made it very difficult for Steve to walk for about 6 weeks which also meant he was unable to work.
After that for the next year or two little things happened but we mostly dismissed them as it was easy to forget when he felt good.
In 2012, Steve started to have a hard time forgetting symptoms. Things really amped up. Symptoms were dizziness, light headedness, ringing in ears, headaches, shortness of breath, racing heart, tingling feet, fatigue, muscle weakness (especially in arms and legs), numb patches in arms, legs, and back, abdominal bloating, and extreme sensitivity to the sun or any bright light.
This continued but Steve tried to combat his symptoms with cycling. He tried to ride when he felt good and he tried to ride when he felt awful. Sometimes the cycling seemed to help and other times it made him feel so weak and faint for days that he didn’t know if he’d ever cycle again. Most of these symptoms still bother him today in addition to new ones including loss of muscle mass and most recently extreme back pain.
Steve has seen many doctors over the years and has had many tests done. He's had X-rays, hearing tests, vision tests, a lot of bloodwork, EKGs, CTs, an MRI of his head to check for lesions that could point to MS, saw a neurologist and an ENT and was prescribed antidepressants. He’s also seen many chiropractors, including one who specializes in NUCCA (National upper cervical chiropractic) in Calgary. We also saw a naturopath in Winnipeg who did a heavy metal detox on Steve thinking that perhaps his exposure to farm chemicals his whole life is what made him ill. In 2015, we applied to go to the Mayo Clinic and got denied because based on symptoms they didn't know if they could help us. We’ve done all of this and he continued to feel chronic pain and had no answers.
We were treated so well by doctors and have absolutely no complaints with the treatment. But to everyone’s frustration we never found the source of the seemingly random problems Steve was facing.
Included in all the testing were two Lyme tests about 5 years ago that both came back negative.
In November 2020, with months of increasing back pain and Steve losing his ability to do basic tasks around the home, we knew we had to do something. We made more Doctor appointments and tried again to get help.
During this time, a friend sent us an episode of W5 called Bitten talking about chronic Lyme in Canada as it reminded them of Steve.
Even though we had two negative Lyme tests, from this we always believed Lyme was the only thing that explained how Steve was feeling. We decided to make an appointment with a naturopath in Winnipeg whom we knew specialized in Lyme. After a long questionnaire, he agreed to send Steve’s blood to a lab in Germany to get tested. This test cost out of pocket $1300. The results came back positive for Chronic Lyme.
This now poses another problem as treatment for this disease is very expensive and somewhat hard to find. Our Naturopath said we could choose to go out of country for treatments. There’s a great clinic in Mexico, one in Germany and a few in the United States. However, he said if we can get a referral to the TiCCs Service (Tick Collaborative Care) in Winnipeg as part of the Winnipeg Health Regional Authority (WHRA). He then believes he can get Steve better with collaborative care. Some of the treatments include Cycling antibiotics, IV ozone therapy with UV treatments, IV vitamin C therapy among others. There is also a need for regular bloodwork to monitor progress of treating the infection, monitoring and promoting immune, kidney liver and gut health.
Currently Steve is very limited in his abilities. He is still able to work as his job is mostly sitting. However he isn’t able to lift, turn or do any basic movements that will strain his back. He is in constant pain and spends most of his time at home laying flat on his back as that is where he finds some relief. ”
**Steve and Linda have decided to pursue treatment here in Canada first and should know if treatments are working within the first 6 weeks. If treatments are unsuccessful here, they will need to explore options outside of the province or country. The doctor said that this percentage is quite low though and most people respond to the treatments within their first few months. He also told them to prepare for extreme roller coasters. Some days Steve will experience more pain than ever and much less pain on other days. He is hopeful that the “no pain” days will eventually outweigh the painful ones. Steve received his bloodwork back on Friday and is beginning his IV on Tuesday (February 16).
Lyme Disease in Canada:
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that manifests itself in the human body after someone is bitten by a tick. 2/3 of Lyme tests are missed from surveillance and confirmed cases in Canada are 10X what they were 10 years ago. It is difficult to detect Lyme since it can present itself as other things. Canada uses a standard test to detect Lyme Disease called the Elisa. Unfortunately, this test is so sensitive that if you test too early or too late for Lyme, the test can come back negative. In Canada, testing has it’s limitations and doctors often find themselves handcuffed in treating Lyme disease. A clinical diagnosis based on symptoms isn’t widely accepted and the treatments which have been shown to yield results such as long term or multiple antibiotics are considered unconventional. This leaves many Canadians with their only option to seek treatment out of country which is extremely frustrating and costly. I’ve attached the link to the W5 episode Linda previously mentioned:
https://youtu.be/DQh_XPU0imQ
In December of 2020, his Lyme disease test came back positive and he finally had a diagnosis he could work with: Chronic Lyme Disease.
Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy here in Canada. It is a very expensive and time consuming battle and there really is no concrete path to take. With great hesitancy and against every prideful bone in their bodies, Steve and his wife Linda have allowed us to launch this Go Fund Me page so that they can share their story and bring awareness to the struggles many Canadians face with Lyme.
As a community, I would love if we could all pray for them as they continue on their quest for treatment and healing. Help them spread awareness about Lyme Disease and the limitations many Canadians find in seeking answers and treatment. If you have the capacity, I kindly ask you to consider donating to help them pursue the costly treatment options. Any path they choose will be challenging physically, mentally, and emotionally and will require Steve to take time off from work and time away from family. They will need community support more than ever.
Steve would love to get back to doing the things he loves: hockey, x country skiing, road cycling, and golf. He is an awesome teacher and has taught the kids to enjoy all those things and just wants to be able to create more memories like these with his kids again. It’s progressed so much that he is unable to shoot a puck anymore because of the extreme pain that it causes. It has come to the point where he is willing to do what needs to be done as the day to day pain and symptoms he experiences are becoming more frequent and unbearable.
They are grateful that their Doctor believes that Steve will be able to have his life back with treatments. Treatments are not covered here in Canada by provincial or federal healthcare plans and costs are the sole responsibility of the patient.
Unfortunately, costs of these treatments are between $5000-$6000/month for a min 7-8 months. The clinics out of country also start at $30,000-$50,000. This is a huge financial burden for any family.
I found it would be best to have Steve and Linda’s journey with Lyme below in their own words:
Steve and Linda’s Lyme Disease Journey:
“The first symptom we saw was Fall of 2010. One of Steve’s knees became extremely swollen for no reason. A few weeks after that, the other knee also became swollen. This caused severe pain and made it very difficult for Steve to walk for about 6 weeks which also meant he was unable to work.
After that for the next year or two little things happened but we mostly dismissed them as it was easy to forget when he felt good.
In 2012, Steve started to have a hard time forgetting symptoms. Things really amped up. Symptoms were dizziness, light headedness, ringing in ears, headaches, shortness of breath, racing heart, tingling feet, fatigue, muscle weakness (especially in arms and legs), numb patches in arms, legs, and back, abdominal bloating, and extreme sensitivity to the sun or any bright light.
This continued but Steve tried to combat his symptoms with cycling. He tried to ride when he felt good and he tried to ride when he felt awful. Sometimes the cycling seemed to help and other times it made him feel so weak and faint for days that he didn’t know if he’d ever cycle again. Most of these symptoms still bother him today in addition to new ones including loss of muscle mass and most recently extreme back pain.
Steve has seen many doctors over the years and has had many tests done. He's had X-rays, hearing tests, vision tests, a lot of bloodwork, EKGs, CTs, an MRI of his head to check for lesions that could point to MS, saw a neurologist and an ENT and was prescribed antidepressants. He’s also seen many chiropractors, including one who specializes in NUCCA (National upper cervical chiropractic) in Calgary. We also saw a naturopath in Winnipeg who did a heavy metal detox on Steve thinking that perhaps his exposure to farm chemicals his whole life is what made him ill. In 2015, we applied to go to the Mayo Clinic and got denied because based on symptoms they didn't know if they could help us. We’ve done all of this and he continued to feel chronic pain and had no answers.
We were treated so well by doctors and have absolutely no complaints with the treatment. But to everyone’s frustration we never found the source of the seemingly random problems Steve was facing.
Included in all the testing were two Lyme tests about 5 years ago that both came back negative.
In November 2020, with months of increasing back pain and Steve losing his ability to do basic tasks around the home, we knew we had to do something. We made more Doctor appointments and tried again to get help.
During this time, a friend sent us an episode of W5 called Bitten talking about chronic Lyme in Canada as it reminded them of Steve.
Even though we had two negative Lyme tests, from this we always believed Lyme was the only thing that explained how Steve was feeling. We decided to make an appointment with a naturopath in Winnipeg whom we knew specialized in Lyme. After a long questionnaire, he agreed to send Steve’s blood to a lab in Germany to get tested. This test cost out of pocket $1300. The results came back positive for Chronic Lyme.
This now poses another problem as treatment for this disease is very expensive and somewhat hard to find. Our Naturopath said we could choose to go out of country for treatments. There’s a great clinic in Mexico, one in Germany and a few in the United States. However, he said if we can get a referral to the TiCCs Service (Tick Collaborative Care) in Winnipeg as part of the Winnipeg Health Regional Authority (WHRA). He then believes he can get Steve better with collaborative care. Some of the treatments include Cycling antibiotics, IV ozone therapy with UV treatments, IV vitamin C therapy among others. There is also a need for regular bloodwork to monitor progress of treating the infection, monitoring and promoting immune, kidney liver and gut health.
Currently Steve is very limited in his abilities. He is still able to work as his job is mostly sitting. However he isn’t able to lift, turn or do any basic movements that will strain his back. He is in constant pain and spends most of his time at home laying flat on his back as that is where he finds some relief. ”
**Steve and Linda have decided to pursue treatment here in Canada first and should know if treatments are working within the first 6 weeks. If treatments are unsuccessful here, they will need to explore options outside of the province or country. The doctor said that this percentage is quite low though and most people respond to the treatments within their first few months. He also told them to prepare for extreme roller coasters. Some days Steve will experience more pain than ever and much less pain on other days. He is hopeful that the “no pain” days will eventually outweigh the painful ones. Steve received his bloodwork back on Friday and is beginning his IV on Tuesday (February 16).
Lyme Disease in Canada:
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that manifests itself in the human body after someone is bitten by a tick. 2/3 of Lyme tests are missed from surveillance and confirmed cases in Canada are 10X what they were 10 years ago. It is difficult to detect Lyme since it can present itself as other things. Canada uses a standard test to detect Lyme Disease called the Elisa. Unfortunately, this test is so sensitive that if you test too early or too late for Lyme, the test can come back negative. In Canada, testing has it’s limitations and doctors often find themselves handcuffed in treating Lyme disease. A clinical diagnosis based on symptoms isn’t widely accepted and the treatments which have been shown to yield results such as long term or multiple antibiotics are considered unconventional. This leaves many Canadians with their only option to seek treatment out of country which is extremely frustrating and costly. I’ve attached the link to the W5 episode Linda previously mentioned:
https://youtu.be/DQh_XPU0imQ
Organizer and beneficiary
Breanne Irwin
Organizer
Portage la Prairie, MB
Linda Wiebe
Beneficiary