LYME disease lives in Australia!

 LYME disease lives in Australia!

Thank you to Jasmin Burgess for sharing her story.

I have re-shared it on-to a photo for her so that it is easier to share around (info gets lost on event shares).

Jas submitted the attached photo for last year’s WWLP video – and the words

 “I want to go to bed at night without worrying whether I will wake up in the morning”

..... touched me deeply.

Jasmin deals with this illness with such grace and only has words of kindness and help for others.  Thank you for sharing your story Jas. 

Below is also the link to the WA Awareness event this Saturday, and a recent article featuring WA Lyme folk, including Jas and her family.

Thoughts and thanks to Jas and her amazing family, for all they go through on a daily basis, and all they do to raise awareness and help others

Article: http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/lyme-disease-a-ticking-timebomb-that-health-authorities-say-does-not-exist/story-fnhocxo3-1226886911487
WA Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/673384426052894/


A Part of Jasmin's story she wrote for awareness:

For those of you who don't know, I have been struggling each and every day to survive with severe chronic illness for over six years now. I am fairly disabled and housebound, needing help with even basic daily tasks and only cope because I have my amazing Mum Ailsa Burgess as my full time carer.

I am riddled with different disorders including severe Fibromyalgia (think Pain, lots and lots and lots of pain, all day every day for years, so bad that I have to have a morphine based pain patch and even that only just dulls the pain, nothing can ever take all of it away), Dystonia (muscle spasms so bad I dislocate joints and break ribs, spasms in my stomach that meant that I vomited nearly every day for four years straight, spasms that without my medication mean I can't even walk or hold a pen), severe CFS/ME (imagine every single muscle down to your toes being so exhausted you can barely move, All. The. Time.

Imagine sleeping all day yet waking up more tired than you went to bed, imagine the worst hangover you've ever had + the worst flu you've ever had multiplied by a thousand, every day, for six years), severe Migraines (not a 'bad headache' but migraines that last for days and feel as if my head is filled with lava and every noise and light are icicles piercing through me) a heart condition, Blepharospasm, Paradoxical vocal chord disorder and the list goes on and on.

We have never stopped searching for the cause and a treatment however because of the lack of research and education in Australia it took us nearly five years and multiple other diagnosis to finally find the cause of my torture - Lyme disease. Because of that I now have late stage neurological Lyme disease, meaning the bacteria has infiltrated my entire body including my brain and treatment is going to be much, much longer and incredibly gruelling.

This is why I often only make it online once a week and struggle just to reply to simple messages. It's why it's taken me three days just to write this little blurb!

The worst part of all this is that if I had received treatment when this began then I mightn't be sick right now. All this suffering might have been avoided if the doctors had simply known what to test for. Now I am lucky to be seeing one of the few Lyme literate Drs and I am on treatment and though I know I will get worse before I get better and it will take many years (instead of the few weeks it would have taken if they caught it early) I am happy to finally have some hope.

I don't often post on Facebook so I hope you know I'm not trying to elicit sympathy or do this for attention (which is why I've tried to keep it matter of fact though it's hard to simplify my life into a few paragraphs). I'm only writing this in the hope that you can help me spread awareness of this awful disease so others won't have to suffer as I have.

To that end, there is a Lyme Awareness Event this Saturday (May 17th) from 11 - 5 at the Perth Cultural Centre and at Southland's shopping centre from 9 - 5. If you could swing by either one it would be incredibly appreciated (and I'm hoping and praying to make it myself so please come say hi if you see me in my wheelchair!) or if you could simply share the event details yourself I would very grateful.

My love to you all, Jas. Xx

Bellingen Main Street NSW

Bellingen NSW has a lot of sufferers of Lymes Disease and there is a doctor here whose name is Dr Gull Herzberg and he is located at the Bellingen Healing Centre and he treats Lymes Disease.

Images @ Eminpee Fotography-Bellingen's Hyde Street