Denise Ryan contracted Lyme disease about 2011 while living in Canada. Despite visiting endless doctors and specialists in Canada, the 32-year-old from Rathfarnham in Dublin was gradually getting more unwell, and eventually ended up returning to Ireland as she was no longer able to work.
“I started having really bad night sweats and heart palpitations and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. My roommates were so worried about me. I thought, this is getting insane I have to go home. Then it was worse here, because even though you can get Lyme here and a lot of people do, doctors don’t know about it; it’s just not on their radar.
“I’ve been through the ringer so much with doctors; it’s not even so much that they don’t know much about it...even though you can get Lyme here and a lot of people do, it’s not the first thing on the doctor's radar,” she says.
Symptoms
Her initial symptoms included “brain fog” and “air hunger” – her brain felt fuzzy and it constantly felt like she had just been punched in the chest. She was throwing up every day and felt very disorientated and “out of it” all the time. Tonsil and sinus infections plagued her. A rash in the area, and flu-like symptoms are the most common symptoms of Lyme.
“I felt really rundown and I couldn’t get out of bed until halfway through the day,” she says.
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It definitely shows some of the difficulties in getting a diagnosis.