‘My life turned upside down by a bite’

Melonie Bray was an active person, who was usually found in the mountains and spending time with her young daughter.

But a tick bite turned her whole world upside down as she caught up LymeA bacterial infection passed to people from pests.

As a result, Mrs Bray, 32, from Bangor, Gwynedd, was unable to control her body, speak or open her eyes. Now it takes Botox injections to see.

She said she wants to take back her life, but the treatments are only privately available and cost thousands of pounds.

Mrs Bray was a climb trainer and was trained to become a leader of the mountain.

Before bite bite, she would take her daughter to school, then go to the mountains to fly or go to work. In the afternoons, she will take her daughter, dinner, take her to a club and prepare her for a bed.

Mrs Bray said: “I was busy all the time, people say I had to sit down.”

Now her days look “completely different”.

“I wake up in the morning and most of the time I am so rigid that I can’t get out of bed.”

He said he has a Commode in the living room because he can’t go up the bathroom.

It uses an electric wheelchair to get around the house, but it must have help to leave the property as there is a step out.

“If I want a shower, I have to go to my mom’s house. Or Ricky will do it in the kitchen that is not very good in a chair.”

She said that her partner Ricky Thomas, 41, “literally does everything” now and abandoned his job as a stone masta to become a full -time caregiver.

It all started in July 2022, when Mrs Bray noted that a Bullseye rash is growing in her hand.

Doctors gave her steroid cream, but that made the rash worse.

She noticed her eye, but she didn’t think about anything.

“I have continued to work, all was well, then I started to get back pain, then on January 5, 2023 my hands started to hit while driving home from work.

“The next morning, when I woke up. My hands were pulled in a fist. I couldn’t open them.”

In the coming months and her partner desperately tried to understand what was happening.

Doctors were initially diagnosed with Crest syndrome, a rare autoimmune condition, but this was later reduced.

“Two months later my eyes worsened. I developed a blindfold, which is twisting the eyelids to the point where they were closed.

“That week my eyes. My legs. Everything went. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t see or talk – I was a board.”

Mrs Bray was diagnosed Functional neurological disorder (FND) But there is no treatment and physiotherapy did not help.

It was not until August that Mrs Bray remembered the Bullseye rash and realized the possible link.

They bought a diagnostic kit for Lyme’s disease, which returned positively.

The disease can be difficult to diagnose. Has similar symptoms to other situations and does not always cause an obvious rash, According to NHS.

He was clinically diagnosed with Lyme disease when he traveled to Ireland to consult a Lyme disease specialist and began treatment.

“I went back and back to Ireland twice, but obviously it’s expensive to go all the time when you can’t work, so I had to stop going – and my symptoms started to come back.”

Mrs Bray was transferred to the hospital again and put IV antibiotics, but was only able to have four circles due to strict instructions.

“Every time they stopped it, I kept going backwards. I see small improvements, I was stronger, my eyes no longer contribute, I could see, sit without help. “

Mr Thomas said: “He was crazy, to get bitten by something small and go by an active person who does three jobs a day in nothing is another shock.

He said that “looking at her in so much pain” was really difficult for him.

Mrs Bray may still open her eyes due to Botox injections, but her body control is constantly deteriorating, she said.

Mrs Bray is now glued to the vacuum, unable to access treatment unless he goes private.

To work for this, a Gofundme page has been created by events to raise money.

“He gave me hope, the opportunity to improve and take my life back,” the 32 -year -old said.

They are currently targeting one year of ozone treatment value that costs £ 7,000.

Treatment is undervaluedBut it has created great interest from people living with lyme disease.

However, this is a treatment that MS Bray would need forever.

Alternatively, it could travel to Germany for “proper treatment, including antibiotics and immune treatment”, which will cost £ 18,000 for the initial phase, but further treatment will be required.

He said: “If you bite a tick and develop a Bullseye rash, make sure you take antibiotics at an early stage, because if you don’t make it much more complicated.”

He added that “guidelines must change” when it comes to treatment.

“They say that four weeks is enough – it may be for people who are treated in their early days to bite, but not for people who continue to be years.”

The NHS follows Nice guidelines, which has come into contact for comments.

If Mrs Bray recovered, she said she hoped that one day she would go up to Wyddfa, also known as Snowdon, again with her daughter and “do the things I had planned to do”.

“Obviously I would be happy if I got 50% better,” he said.