I know how hard it is and the type of suffering you go through when you have Lyme, and it’s the loneliest place on earth
The Irish Examiner reports: As holidaymakers travel across Ireland this summer, they are urged by experts to take precautions against Lyme disease. A parasite-transmitted infection, general awareness of the markers for Lyme disease, and the importance of early diagnosis is low. But as well as being preventable, effective treatment with antibiotics (such as doxycycline or amoxicillin) is available.
Although some 73 symptoms are associated with Lyme disease, one of the most prominent symptoms of Lyme disease is a “bullseye” rash at the site of the tick bite.
For Sophie La Touche, influencer and Lyme advocate, lack of medical awareness about Lyme and misdiagnosis meant that her experience was prolonged and painful.
During the early stages of Lyme, she explains that “it got to a point where I couldn’t shower because the steam was too intense for my senses – everything was heightened… I was getting vertigo and I was so dizzy. And at the same time, the doctors were saying there was nothing wrong with me. I just remember it was the most horrible time of my life. I will never, in as long as I live, forget how much I wanted to die.”
She was misdiagnosed with mixed connective tissue disease and placed on immunosuppressants, which worsened her condition to a debilitating state. “I used to leave my door wide open in my room because I was afraid that I was going to die in the middle of the night and no one was going to find me.”
