Almost another full year has passed since I was featured on Action News and I am still in bed fighting my Chronic Lyme Disease. Tonight they did a story on Lyme Disease again and it featured the incredible Dr. Kerry Clark. This man has dedicated his research career to proving that Lyme and other co-infective bacteria are actually found here in the south. He has been collecting ticks from all over the region and has been testing patients who have submitted samples of their blood and tissue in order to follow cases for over ten years as he worked on a massive clinical study that was just released. This study showed that Lyme does in fact originate in ticks here in the south.
Here is the link to his published clinical study:
Here is the link to the news broadcast that was on Action News tonight:
The month of May is actually Lyme Disease Awareness Month and for those of you who are able to leave your house, unlike myself, this would be a great time to maybe learn a little bit more about tick prevention and make sure you know how to keep yourselves safe when participating in outdoor recreation. I don’t want any one of you to end up like me. This makes my fourth year of aggressively fighting this disease and my third year of being housebound and mostly bedridden. I had a strong knowledge about Lyme Disease and I knew about tick removal and tick prevention, yet I still ended up with this debilitating disease. Please don’t think that because you live in a southern state that this can’t happen to you.
There is plenty of information online about how to protect yourselves and how to correctly remove ticks so I won’t use my limited blog space to educate you. I just encourage you to check that information on the internet right away and be vigilant for both yourself, your family members and your pets. Also, if you believe that you have been exposed, if you feel ill in any way after an exposure or even if you simply suspect that you possibly have contracted this disease….get treatment IMMEDIATELY. You don’t have time to waste. The clock is ticking from the minute you get bitten.
If one doctor refuses you antibiotics, find another one who will give them to you. This is nothing to fool around with. You can either argue with a few physicians over getting a couple of months of medicine or you can spend five years in bed, lose your career, your income, your savings, your health insurance, your house, your ability to walk, your health and everything else in your life. I would choose the few arguments with the doctors for immediate antibiotics if I could do it all over again.
There are hundreds of thousands of us out here who are struggling with Chronic Lyme Disease and for years we have been suffering in silence. It is finally starting to become noticed in the mainstream media and we are slowly starting to be heard by some of the state and national government legislatures. Our battle continues in an attempt to get better care for ourselves but if we can at least save some of you from going through the hell that we are living then we will do everything in our power to get the word out to you as our primary goal. It is too late for us but not for you.
To celebrate Lyme Disease Awareness Month there will be a concert called Lyme in the South Music Festival this weekend on May 17, 2014 at 3pm at the River City Brewing Company located at 835 Museum Circle Jacksonville, Florida. Here is the link for further details or you can Google it as well:
I encourage you to attend if you live in the Jacksonville area so you can support the cause, enjoy some great music out on the deck beside the beautiful St. John’s River, learn a little bit about Lyme Disease, savor some wonderful food and beverages and simply have a great night out meeting some strong people who are fighting for their lives. I can assure you it will be an enlightening experience. I am only sorry that I won’t be there to meet you.