So I’m a little late, but May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. As some of you may know, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease in the spring of 2014. Unfortunately, like many people, I received a late diagnosis, which made treatment a little more difficult, and I was later recognized as having chronic, or post-treatment, Lyme. Too many people find themselves in similar positions. Because they present none of the earliest signs of Lyme, like the bull’s-eye rash and joint pain, they spend years searching for answers, as they develop new and even more severe symptoms. When they finally receive the proper diagnosis, they are told treatment will be hard and that they will most likely get a lot worse before they get better. All of the sudden these independent, active people are now confined to wheelchairs, unable to feed, clothe, and bathe themselves. They’re scared as they not only begin to see the worried looks on their family and friends’ faces, but on the faces of the doctors and nurses in the emergency room as well. After treatment, while there is definitely some improvement, they find that many of their symptoms still persist and are now diagnosed with chronic/post-treatment Lyme. Again, doctors don’t have answers for them; instead, they are asked to be a part of various research studies. They spend the next several years in and out of doctors’ offices, seeing every specialist known to man and treating symptom by symptom.
 
When most people think of Lyme disease, they think of the early stage—the stage that is typically easy to treat with three weeks of antibiotics. Often the people who go undiagnosed and suffer for years and who end up with chronic/post-treatment Lyme are forgotten. This lack of awareness not just within society, but within the medical community as well, only makes it harder for people to receive the correct diagnosis and treatment. Because early detection is so important for Lyme disease, efforts to increase awareness and improve testing need to continue, which is why, this month, I am participating in the “Take A Bite Out of Lyme” challenge. I am also starting a GoFundMe page, in which all the proceeds will go to The Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center. Please consider donating. No amount is too small. And, let us all accept the challenge to take a bite out of Lyme together!