Lyme Success Stories: Why They Happen and Why You'll Never Hear About Them

It was a little over two years ago, but I remember it as if it were only yesterday. After excitedly receiving my Lyme diagnosis, I went home and searched through every Lyme link that google spit back at me. I wanted to devour as much information as I possibly could, but as I went through site after site it suddenly began to dawn on me the harshness of my new reality. This would certainly be no quick fix. "People still get better though!" I thought to myself. I opened up my browser, and I began my next search. It was a simple search, that to my shock yielded little results. "Lyme Success Stories," would sit in my google search bar repeatedly for the next year. I was desperate to find stories that I could relate to, but I couldn't. I was angry, shocked, hopeless, I started to feel as if there was no way out of this. According to the internet, hardly anyone was recovering from this monster.

As time went on, friends put me into contact with others they knew who had made full recoveries from late-stage Lyme Disease.  Many were willing to talk and even had very uplifting words. When I asked if they spoke to other Lyme patients about their experiences, their voices took a deeper, somber tone. Some relayed to me that I was the first Lyme patient they ever lent advice to, though some had been in remission as long as 15-20 years. I was taken back by this. We're starving for hope, and they choose to look the other direction and pretend as if it didn't happen. I couldn't possibly wrap my head around the fact that they had ignored others afflicted with the same thing that had caused them so much heartache and pain. 

I promised myself that no matter what the circumstance, once I was better I would come back and share my story as much as possible with other Lyme patients.  However, as time passes and you experience the traumatic nature of not only the illness, but society's reaction to it, you start to step back. As I started doing better, I turned my back on the Lyme community. I didn't even utter the word Lyme to others for over a year and removed myself from all Lyme support groups. It was too much, I didn't want to go back and relive what had happened to me. I didn't want to just be this illness, I was tired of my entire self being consumed by just this one thing. My entire identity couldn't be wrapped around only this, I was more than just a Lyme patient. But I would receive calls or messages from people who had a loved one with Lyme begging for any typer of guidance. It brought me back to how scary those times were, how I was in dire need of hope or guidance and it made me realize that I need to be better, we all need to better.

I know many of you are sitting or have sat in the same chair I once was with your new diagnosis. I know many of you are very discouraged with the lack of people reflecting on their paths to wellness. Unfortunately, we don't have our own Lance Armstrong, and one isn't likely coming anytime soon. I will say this though, the odds are on your side that you will get better! I've been to a physician who treats Lyme and has recorded the success of all his patients. He saw a huge improvement with at least 85% of his patients, and a little over 50% of those were able to reach full remission. These results for the most part are typical for all good Lyme-Literate Doctors. With those success rates, there should be thousands of recovery stories littered all over Google and Facebook, there should be tons of memoirs about their recoveries as well, right? If you've searched the internet, or your local library, you likely know this isn't the case.

Many of us are told that their illness isn't real, even those closest to us may not even believe us or think we're at they very least being overdramatic. Not only are we fighting a monster in our body, we're fighting society's perception of that same monster as well. By the time many get well, they're so exhausted of having to explain their stories or symptoms that they just want to move on. Besides, no one took them seriously before, so why is anyone going to celebrate overcoming an illness they believed wasn't even legitimate. If you were to tell a person walking down the street, "Hey I beat Lyme!" their reaction would likely be a very sarcastic, "Good for you." The narrative of overcoming Lyme Disease isn't seen as heroic as it might be with other illnesses. One day when awareness and research catches up with reality, maybe it will be, but that's not how it is now. The majority of patients think of Lyme Disease as a nightmare they never want to look back on. When they reenter back into society as a healthy functioning citizen, they're most likely trying to recuperate finances lost from paying large medical bills, and making up for all the time they lost while recovering from Lyme.

Many have given years to the recovery and don't feel they're in a position to give any more time away. They need to get back to their loved ones, not to a medical community that treated them as poorly as humanly possible. 

I'm not saying any of this is right way to handle it, but it's the reality of the situation. However, I do feel we all need to make a conscious effort to give back and at least put our stories out there for others. If you have recovered from Lyme or know someone who has, put it out there! The hope that it creates for others is certainly worth the time it'll cost you to write it out. So make a promise to yourself, "When I am feeling better, the fight is not over. I still must help others so that no one has to experience what I had to." If you can make this commitment to yourself, the world will be a better place for it.