"Untreated Lyme Disease"

I was bitten by a tick and had the characteristic rash twenty four years ago. My GP dismissed it. After being ill with all sorts of things for fifteen years I discovered Lyme disease on the Internet and had tests sent to America which came back positive. I had private treatment of antibiotics for sixteen months and felt a lot better. I returned to work.

After a few years I started to deteriorate again and was referred to the Lyme clinic which opened at Winchester hospital. The doctor there initially rubbished my tests results but then agreed that I had chronic Lyme disease and treated me with antibiotics for a month. After a follow up over the phone when I told them I was not much better they decided I must have been cured and refused to prescribe any more antibiotics. A year later I was bitten again and my GP would only prescribe ten days antibiotics despite my health deteriorating further.

I am now very unwell, I have had to virtually stop working, I had numerous strange symptoms and poor blood results, my ESR and CRP went very high straight after the tick bite but even my rheumatologist says that is not related. I can see that all my recent problems dated from the bite but no one else agrees and I am tested for all sorts of spurious things but the possibility of Lyme disease or a co infection is ignored. I feel I have been left on the scrap heap.