A woman has told how she is battling a debilitating illness picked up from an insect bite in Thailand that took 18 months to diagnose.
India Matthews was backpacking through south-east Asia when she became ill and it was not until a year and half later that she was diagnosed with Lyme Disease.
Now her boyfriend Nathaniel Pells is going to walk from his home in Leeds to where she lives in Bath to raise money for her treatment, reported LeedsLive.
The couple met on a backpacking holiday in 2016, when India was 18 and she was bitten by an insect in a restaurant in Thailand that began her Lyme Disease nightmare.
From May 16, Nathaniel will walk an average of 28.5miles a day for seven days from Alwoodley to reach India's home 200 miles away.
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks and is usually easier to treat if it's diagnosed early.
India, now 24, tried to carry on as she began experiencing fatigue, a stiff neck and fever but gradually she deteriorated. She began suffering from blurred and foggy vision, seizures, sleep paralysis, sensitivity to noise and bright lights.
She sought treatment at hospitals in Vietnam, Singapore, Bali and Japan but did not find the cause and similarly back in England doctors also drew a blank.
It was finally a year and a half afterwards at a clinic in Germany she was diagnosed with Lyme Disease.
India said: “I’ve been ill for over six years, I got ill when I was 18-years-old with me being 24 now. The past two weeks have been going downhill, it’s been getting to me. I’ve been struggling with my symptoms. I can’t do everything people my age are doing. I look very well, I will meet people and they don’t know I’m ill.”
Nathaniel felt that a sponsored walk would be the ideal way to raise money for her treatment.
He said: “I’m from Leeds and she’s from Bath we’ve always had a long-distance [relationship] and we’ve always joked about the distance.
"She would joke and say I wish you could walk down to mine. We had a joke that it would be funny to walk that far so I decided to do something original to raise money.
“I thought I would put it into perspective how she feels on long walks if she has to walk a mile it can run her down the rest of the day.”
The fundraising page explains: “Over the years India has spent many hours and nights in A&E due to the intensity of her symptoms. She has also suffered from pancreatitis and developed several autoimmune conditions including daily orthostatic hypotension (extremely low blood pressure ), and not to mention her mental health has of course taken a big hit.
“India is unable to take part in most ‘normal’ activities and daily tasks most 24-year-old's can do without thinking. She feels unwell every time she drinks alcohol, her symptoms flare up massively if she has poor sleep, going on a quick 10-minute run could put her in bed for a week with intense headaches and head pressure.
"Any form of transport makes her feel spaced out and dizzy, she has to be careful with the food she eats and she can’t focus on things for too long as it causes strange visual and head symptoms (this makes working, staring at a computer, driving and extensive reading incredibly challenging).
“Six years on, India would argue she is 60% better. Although many may not know or realise because she looks ‘well’, she still experiences a broad range of neurological, autonomic, digestive, heart and fatigue symptoms on a daily basis.”
Click here to visit the fundraising page.
