Only seven years after the first symptoms of infection, Karolina Zigowska from Świecie learned that the probable cause of the ruin of her health was neuroborreliosis. Too late to heal her completely.
Karolina is 19 years old, has a fashionable hairstyle and clothes. Painting is her passion. In the room where she spends most of her life, there are easels, and her paintings hang on the walls throughout the house. There is a magnifying glass next to the computer with a special keyboard. Next to it, on the bed, a soft blanket and a pillow. Because Karolina sometimes sleeps all day. He does not leave the room and hardly wants to eat anything. Mum, Urszula, wraps her hands but tries not to complain.
– That’s the way it is with her disease. A few bright days. The daughter goes downstairs, smiles, has enthusiasm for work, we make plans. And then collapse again. Her whole body hurts. Muscles, joints, stomach, head. She has pressure surges, nausea, and her arms and legs are trembling. Vision deteriorates again, hearing loss appears. Pain is intertwined with a depressive mood. My heart breaks when I have to watch him suffer.
Karolina only recently found out that the most likely cause of her various chronic ailments was encephalitis as a result of a tick bite that infected her with spirochetes that are dangerous to her health Borrelia burgdorferi. Seven years had passed before he was diagnosed with Lyme disease. She had the first symptoms of the disease at the end of primary school. She began to complain of various ailments. She had mood swings, recurring infections. Bursting redness appeared in the folds of the arms, under the knees, and even on the face. The doctor prescribed ointments for them. In the first year of her dream art school, she lost her eyesight. Due to her poor health, she was not promoted to the second grade. Fortunately, partial vision has returned.
– Now, when I look back at all those years of her torment, I find it hard to accept that it took so long to finally discover what was wrong with my child – complains Ms Ula.
Because before specialized tests showed spirochetes Borrelia burgdorferi Scattered all over Karolina’s body, the girl passed through the hands of all possible specialists and they always spread those hands helplessly.
Source: radioklinika.pl
– After losing her eyesight in high school, Karolina was treated both in the ophthalmology and neurological departments. She even studied hematology in Warsaw. A recognized ophthalmologist from Bydgoszcz, who took care of her eyes, said that a psychiatrist would be the best for her. He decided that his eyes are healthy and that he only pretends not to see. Karolina broke down so badly that she had thoughts of suicide. She has undergone a series of psychological tests that have confirmed that she is perfectly sane. Not only that, she is mentally extremely strong. She tolerates well the prolonged treatment and deteriorating well-being. Even though everyone tells her differently – says the mother.
After the visual collapse, it was finally diagnosed that the teenager had sticky inflammation of the arachnoid nerve, which narrowed her field of vision and could lead to total blindness. Karolina has passed into the hands of neurologists and she has heard more and more often that the cause of her troubles is probably the onset of multiple sclerosis. She had nothing to dream about going back to school. Instead, she had to prepare for the fact that she would become a disabled person and she would be treated for the rest of her life.
– It was a horror movie. Constant stays in hospitals, dozens of tests and analyzes, and yet I still had the impression that we were walking in one place. The daughter tried not to break down. She learned to move with a white cane, I started going to Braille lessons with her, but we were still living in terrible uncertainty, because there was still no clear diagnosis and her condition was getting worse – says Urszula.
In order not to go mad with worry, Ula learned to live from day to day and in accordance with the rhythm of her daughter’s well-being. They both reliably followed all the doctors’ orders, went to medical examinations, and humbly put up with further suggestions and medical discussions. In order to have funds for the treatment of the child, Ula and her husband fell into a spiral of debt. The loan is chasing the loan. Family pleasures are over; vacation trips, city trips. Ula quit her job to take care of her sick daughter, her husband is still away from home – he works on construction sites all over Poland. He takes jobs wherever he can.
– This is so. First, my husband and I had two healthy, cool kids. Boy and girl. We built a house. We wanted to live an ordinary life, work and be happy that the kids are growing. Karolina was the apple of our eye. From childhood, she showed artistic abilities. She won all possible school competitions. She wanted to become a graphic designer. When the first health breakdown came in sixth grade, no one thought to test the child for Lyme disease. This was not the case at the time. People were not so sensitive to this disease. And yet she had an erythema all over her body! She had symptoms of an infection that might have alerted her GP. Unfortunately this did not happen…
Dr. Dorota Dybowska from the Provincial Observation and Infectious Hospital in Bydgoszcz explains that infections transmitted by ticks may be viral and bacterial. The virus causes the so-called tick-borne encephalitis and spirochetes Borrelia burgdorferi are responsible for the occurrence of Lyme disease. Tick-borne encephalitis can take the form of flu-like symptoms, meningitis, encephalitis and spinal cord inflammation. Treatment is symptomatic. You can get vaccinated against this disease.
The reason for late diagnosis of Lyme disease may be a misreading of its symptoms as symptoms of other diseases.
– Lyme disease can take many forms. Most often, the first sign of infection with spirochetes Borrelia burgdorferi there is migratory erythema – an enlarging red lesion on the skin, sometimes with a brightening inside (a characteristic ring is formed) – explains the doctor.
– But Lyme disease affects other systems as well. It can lead to inflammation of the meninges, nerves and nerve roots, inflammation of the heart muscle, arthritis, and other less frequent symptoms. In its chronic form, it often mimics other diseases, such as MS, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, which in turn makes it difficult and delays the correct diagnosis, and thus the implementation of appropriate treatment. Therapy at every stage of the disease consists of administering antibiotics. The sooner we start causal treatment, the less chance of developing chronic symptoms, where the treatment is rarely fully effective.
Dr. Dybowska, who devoted her doctoral dissertation to Lyme disease, emphasizes that prophylaxis is very important, consisting in the use of appropriate clothing and repellants during walks in the woods, allotments and parks, as well as a thorough examination of the skin and the fastest possible removal of ticks after such activities. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine against this disease.
– It seems that the social awareness of tick-borne diseases is growing mainly thanks to training conducted among people professionally exposed to contact with ticks (e.g. working in the forest) and more and more information published in the media – says Dr. Dybowska.
– Parents usually already know that the child’s body should be carefully checked after a stay in the forest or on the plot. They do not underestimate the appearance of an erythema that does not disappear and even increases in size. They know that prompt treatment in this phase of the disease leads to a cure. Untreated tick-borne infections can lead to “ruin” and, in some cases, even death, the doctor admits.
Karolina is currently being treated in a private clinic. There is no point in reimbursing costs from the National Health Fund. Her disease is too advanced, too controversial, to apply for reimbursement.
– For the National Health Fund, I am already lost, marginalized to the margin of terminally ill people, in whom it is no longer worth pumping money, but for ZUS certifying doctors, I am still a person capable of work, because I am finishing school! I do it as part of an individual learning process, because I want to pass my high school diploma very much. However, I will never be able to work normally, as the medical boards have already confirmed.
However, the medical examiners are not convinced by this. This pretty, smiling girl with amber eyes, who still paints her cheerful pictures, is a simulator for them.
– For some, terminally ill, for others a fraud, for others still crazy. And to think that it all started with an innocent tick bite that no one noticed – says Ursula quietly.
Text: Joanna Weyna-Szczepańska
Ticks in the city – read more
What is the threat of ticks – read on the website Zdrowie.TvoiLokony