Like a lot of Lyme disease patients, Dr. Rebecca Risk doesn’t know when she contracted the disease.
She does know that most Lyme infections, and the co-infections that often accompany the disease, are contracted by from a tick bite. She also knows that the supposedly telltale target rash only appears on about 10 per cent of patients, and that nymphs – baby ticks - can be as tiny as a poppy seed.
And she knows that, like a lot of other Lyme patients, her own symptoms added up over the years instead of arriving with a sudden onset fever and rash. When, after 14 years of illness and nine years of searching for answers, she was finally positively diagnosed with Lyme disease, her symptoms included fibromyalgia, persistent swollen glands, sore throat, sinus congestion, chills and fevers, plantar fasciitis, tendonitis, joint pain and swelling, carpal tunnel syndrome, neck creaks and dozens and dozens more afflictions and symptoms and conditions.
With tick season fully underway in the Bow Valley and eastern Rockies region, The Alpine Club of Canada’s Rocky Mountain Section will host a presentation by Risk at the Canmore Seniors Centre on Monday (May 9) at 7 p.m. The presentation is free and open to all.
“My Lyme story doesn’t end with the diagnosis,” said Dr. Risk, a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncturist and supplement consultant who has worked out of Calgary for a decade.
“I believe it actually starts there. There is a common misconception, as we are shrouded by politics and myths, that a diagnosis ends our searching. It doesn’t. Most of us are still searching for the elusive cure. And what breaks my heart the most is that years later some are still searching for a way to get out of bed.”
The complexities of Lyme disease, Risk said, stem deeper than an infection in a human body, and represent an illness in the Canadian health care system.
“We are missed, ignored, yelled at, shoved aside and treated like second class citizens,” she writes on her website, http://dr-risk.com.
That, she says, is why she has devoted her practice to helping her fellow Lyme disease sufferers by developing a unique system for analysis and treatment of difficult-to-treat diseases such as Lyme disease, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia and other chronic conditions.
For more information, visit www.accrockymtn.ca.
