A woman with Lyme disease “I was trapped in my house for five years” “I want to live as well as exist”

A woman who says she hasn’t left home since 2016 because of Lyme disease wants to “become able to live, not just exist, before I die.”

48-year-old Tracey Weeks, who lives near Taunton, Somerset, has been “almost locked up at home since 1997,” and she is currently unable to even book medical appointments.

Sadly, she suffers from chronic fatigue and cannot walk far, so she must miss the milestones of her teenage daughter’s life, weddings, funerals, baptisms, and encounters with friends and family. It was.

She says she has to reconcile with the world around her, and because there are many others in similar positions, her story is “not just her.”

Tracy is trying to raise awareness of Lyme disease, and people in her condition say research is needed-and “related treatments to filter NHS levels that are accessible as soon as possible.”

Tracy told Miller about her condition, “I’m sick and have been almost at home since 1997.

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“The last time I was able to leave home was in 2016. Now I’m in a position where I can’t even see a doctor or dentist.

“Like me, it’s a completely ignored field of medicine. There’s no help.”

Tracy further said: “It’s like being in a permanent blockade, but you can’t feel good, bake, garden, do daily exercise, and you can’t see the end date.

“One of the things I think it’s important to note is that my story isn’t” just “my story. Many people are in a similar situation. “

Tracy says he was bitten by a 10-year-old tick when he visited Exmoor in the early 1980s.

She remembers a “huge, red, angry bullseye-shaped rash” that spreads from her armpits, but at the time she didn’t know its importance and neither did her doctors, she says.

Tracy said she felt a little sick for a week, but it’s gone.

The following year, she suffered months of nausea, dizziness, swollen glands, abdominal pain, malaise, and pain in her legs, but eventually recovered.

It was at the age of 25 in 1997 that Tracy said her condition really began to deteriorate and she became “forever exhausted.”

“Daily sore throat and glandular swelling are almost constant, dizziness Migraine, “She said.

A Christmas cold further worsened her health, she said she was barely able to move and had numbness, pins and needles, or strange sensations and muscle aches in her arms and legs.

At the time, she worked in a managerial position, but she says it became more and more difficult.

When she went to see a doctor, she was told she had a “virus” that was later called “post-virus malaise.”

“The first few years of getting sick were terrifying,” Tracy said. “My body was shutting me down, and no one could tell me why.”

Over time, when she underwent more tests, Tracy was eventually told she had Lyme disease, but the treatment idea was “rejected.”

She said she couldn’t walk more and more and had to be taken down to the door even to make a hospital appointment-and had to learn to live with it.

Tracy says she has been tied up in bed for decades and feels a little better at other times.

“Leaving home only when absolutely necessary, such as unavoidable medical appointments, needs to be planned with military accuracy so that I can manage it, and maybe a week because my parents push me into a wheelchair. Go out under your steam once or so.

“If I did my best, took a break in advance, and took great care to recover afterwards, I could usually go out once a week.”

She said she started controlling her illness a bit in the first half of 2016, but it recurred by August of that year and has been staying home ever since.

“I really really need dental treatment, but I have to wait until I can see the dentist. My last promise was about 6 years ago.

“The same is true for regular medical examinations such as smear tests and mammograms. They do not occur. You only need the bare minimum.”

Tracy, who now lives with her 17-year-old daughter, describes her illness as “everything happens around you, but you don’t feel part of it, you’re in a bubble of alternative reality.” did.

She said, “You must somehow make your peace because the world is advancing without you, but many things I would have taken for granted as a healthy individual. It’s not painful to miss-in the lives of many milestone daughters, when the mother should have been there, she met family and friends and participated in the events of their lives.

“Whether it was a wedding, a funeral, or a baptism, I was generally stuck in bed and missed it.”

Tracy says her parents take care of her main, but her daughter also helps her a lot at home.

She says she has a mini fridge, a mini cooker, plates and cups in her bedroom and can “live” in one room of a semi-detached house, but she wants to move to a bungalow someday.

Tracy said her story is an example of a much bigger problem.

“I never talked about Lime. I was keenly stigmatized because of the belief that Lime wasn’t” real “and the patient was” weak “or” weak. ” A simple case of hypochondriasis. “

“But so far I’ve lost almost 25 years with this illness, so I feel I need to speak up.

“Children younger than my daughter have this terrible illness and their families are being driven to the same hell as us. It must be stopped. We must somehow make a difference. ..

“We are in desperate need of funding for our research so that we can have reliable tests, rapid diagnosis, and effective treatment.

“Covid shows that if the will is fully involved, there are resources to carry out research and develop treatments, so why can’t it be applied to Lyme disease?”

“I want to be able to live, not just exist, before I die,” Tracy added.