My 14 years of hell after doctors fail to spot Lyme disease
A MOTHER of two was left partially bedridden for 14 years after her doctors misdiagnosed her chronic fatigue as depression when in fact she had Lyme disease.
Lisa Vallo, 49, suffered from extreme tiredness, nausea, arthritis, breathlessness and a racing heart.
Ms Vallo would sometimes spend entire days asleep on her sofa or in bed due to the exhaustion-inducing illness which medics put down to depression and chronic fatigue syndrome.
It was not until 2015 that she was finally diagnosed with the tick-borne condition Lyme disease after persuading her GP to send a blood sample off to a private clinic in Germany.
She said: “I would be asleep downstairs on the sofa then go upstairs and fall asleep on the bed. The effort of just climbing the stairs left me gasping for breath. I would literally fall asleep anywhere.” Ms Vallo suspected she had Lyme Disease in 2010 after watching a TV interview with Phones4U billionaire John Caudwell, whose family is afflicted with Lyme.
She recalled being bitten by a deer tick in 2002. Ms Vallo said: “I woke up with this thing on my tummy. I just pulled it off.
Blood
“There was a little speck blood and that was that.
“But I started feeling fluey for quite some time afterwards – that went on for years.”
But it was about seven years down the line when artist Ms Vallo, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, realised something was really wrong.
She had emigrated to France, with her two children and then husband in 2007. Two years later of the disease symptoms seemed to accelerate. She was spending most of her time in bed while every waking moment was filled with pain and fatigue.
Her worsening condition and the break-up of her marriage convinced her to move back home to England.
She said: “By May of last year I knew I wasn’t going to get any better and ended up planning my funeral.”
In one last-ditch effort to get some treatment she persuaded her GP to send her blood to the German clinic.
She said: “Low and behold, I test positive for Lyme disease. It was absolutely amazing to get a diagnosis – I was ecstatic.”
Ms Vallo then found an American holistic treatment online.
She said: “It uses natural supplements which build up the strength in your body to fight the bacteria. I feel better 95 per cent of the time.”