A 13-year old girl was bed-ridden for 6 months, going in and out of hospitals and clinics but each time her condition baffled the doctors, so they ended up giving a different diagnosis and medication. One doctor even told her she might have a psychological problem. Her condition didn’t improve and it got worse. Her eyes became sensitive to light, suffers from vertigo (sensation of spinning or whirling in her head) and shortness of breath.

Her mother couldn’t stand to see her daughter suffering so she did her own research on the internet. What she found out online was that her daughter could be suffering from Lyme Disease, believed to be caused by a bite from a tick, a tiny spider-like blood-sucking parasite which usually feeds off animals.

So she sought a professor in Newcastle privately and told her about her condition. True enough, she was diagnosed Lyme Disease and three core infections.

‘If it hadn’t have been diagnosed, she could have become paralysed or blind.’

Danielle’s condition was diagnosed as borreliosis, also known as Lyme Disease in April. If left untreated, it can cause nerve damage, paralysis and blindness.

The Manchester schoolgirl is now taking several courses of antibiotics to treat the condition but it is feared she may never fully recover.

‘If she had been diagnosed straight away, it would have been a course of six weeks of antibiotics but now she’s on heavy antibiotics. It’s gone past the blood-brain barrier,’ Danielle’s mother said.

‘Thankfully she is now on a course of treatment and we are just hoping as much as we can that she will get better. On one extreme she could be better in weeks and on the other extreme she might always be like she is now. ‘

Remember, when all seems lost - there’s always the internet!

Full news link: Girl, 13, may be paralysed by disease that baffled doctors for six months - but her mother diagnosed on the internet

Tagged as: internet, medicine.