Lyme Disease NW Awareness 5km Walk

Hi Friends,

I just want to let you all know about a sponsored walk that I am organising to help fund raise for Lyme Disease sufferers and potential carriers of the disease and co-infections. Before I explain more about the fund raising, I would like to briefly share my story with you all and hopefully give you an idea of what this disease is like.

I started experiencing symptoms 15 years ago, but it was in December, 2014, that I became very ill and had to give up work. After a few traumatic life events, and the birth of my son, my immune system became suppressed, which allowed the bacteria present to spread throughout my body, which caused a lot of severe migraines, infections and really bad joint pain.

After going to numerous consultants and doctors, who thought it had either ME, Fibromyalgia or Lupus. I was also told I was probably just depressed. Throughout these prognoses, I learnt about Lyme Disease, and I felt that this really encompassed all of the symptoms I was experiencing. I then found a brilliant GP in my home town of Sligo, who agreed with me that I could have Lyme Disease. He helped me get my bloods sent to ArminLabs (GmbH), who conduct laboratory tests for chronic infections originating from tick-borne diseases. These result of this testing concluded that I had Chronic Lyme, and it had been in my system for 15 years, but only became prevalent since December, 2014.

This disease has been relentless, but it has not prevented me from raising awareness and helping people find out whether or not they had Lyme. I would again like to thank my family and friends for their support throughout these past few years. I am not better, but I believe if it was not for treatment, the disease would have continued to worsen and I would be in a wheelchair.

The Sligo Champion are launching their walk in this weeks edition. All money raised is going directly into a fund, which will be managed by local councillors and a TD. This fund will be accessible by people who are experiencing symptoms of Lyme and are looking for answers.

Thank you all,