Member-only story
I First Had Lyme Disease in 2010. I Never Really Got Better.
The author has spent a decade fighting persistent Lyme disease symptoms — and convincing those who don’t believe him that his illness is real
This story is part of “Tickpocalypse,” a multi-part special report.
My first run-in with Lyme disease had few of the usual hallmarks of the illness. I never had the trademark bull’s-eye rash. I never even saw a tick. And despite adhering to all the standard treatments, I’ve never fully recovered. Nearly 10 years later, I still suffer from an often-debilitating array of symptoms that modern medicine has no concrete answer for.
My experience with the disease began shortly after my wife and I bought a home in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York. While clearing dead trees and leaves from the property in the summer of 2010, I became viciously ill. After spending several days in bed with a fever that peaked at 103 degrees, I headed to my local doctor to be sure I hadn’t contracted a plague.
Given that we had moved just a few hours away from Old Lyme, Connecticut — where the disease first surfaced in 1975 — the doctor prescribed a two-week course of the antibiotic doxycycline, the gold standard treatment for Borrelia burgdorferi, the…
