LORRAINE Murray went from competing in Olympic-distance triathlons to spending 18 months in bed after she contracted Lyme disease from a tick bite while out walking her dog in August 2014. The former British Army physical fitness instructor, from Montrose, fell ill almost immediately.
Mrs Murray, from Montrose, said: “I remember the date clearly as at the time I became ill I was away celebrating my 10th year wedding anniversary with my husband, I spent four days in a hotel room bed unable to move. A few days beforehand, I had a little black thing at the top of my leg but I hadn’t realised it was a tick."
At first, her GP diagnosed flu. However, the symptoms kept returning.
She said: "Every month I developed this same flu like feeling and then other symptoms started creeping in also between these bouts like ear and eye sensitivities, chills, fever, sweating, and I suddenly started having difficulty walking. That’s when I knew something was very wrong."
After nine months she was forced to give up work due to exhaustion and the onset of alarming new problems.
"Around the 9 month mark I had severe heart symptoms - my heart would just speed up with no warning. This lasted a few weeks and was again misdiagnosed as a panic attack.
The symptoms just kept increasing. I had a stiff neck, tingling legs, buzzing sensations (felt like an army of ants were running up and down inside my legs."
After being misdiagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, Mrs Murray was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease after undergoing private tests and has paid for treatment privately.
Ms Murray has now founded the Tick-Borne Illness Campaign Scotland, which is petitioning the Scottish Parliament for better treatment for Lyme disease and related infections.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here