Skin rash, fever, headache, fatigue and weakness: these are the first symptoms of Lyme disease, from which the model was affected Bella Hadid and told by her in a long post on social media, talking about her long ordeal, including “over 100 days of chronic Lyme disease, and nearly 15 years of invisible suffering.”
The disease is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, transmitted to humans by infected tick bite, which generally occurs by frequenting, especially in spring and summer, woods and meadows without the due protections. Therefore, if you lie down on the grass, it is essential to use a towel, use socks that protect the calf and, at the end of the excursions in the countryside or mountains, check that there are no ‘unwanted guests’. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most cases of Lyme disease can be treated with a course of oral antibiotics for 2 to 4 weeks, but sometimes patients may experience systemic and neurological symptoms such as having pain, fatigue, or trouble thinking that last for months after they finish treatment. In the case of Bella Hadid even for years, even 15, even if with alternating phases of gravity.
The early therapy is essential: the infection can spread to the joints and heart and, if the right treatments are not used, usually antibiotics, neurological complications can occur. Early diagnosis is one of the biggest problems: tick bites are often not easy to recognize and go unnoticed. The dark red-brown males of the tick are similar to a peppercorn, while the females are greyish. After a few days, the inflammation caused locally by the puncture and the characteristic concentric shape expands, causing ‘migrant’ eruptions that is, they move.
At the 26-year-old the disease was transmitted in 2012. “Little me who suffered would be so proud to have raised me and not given up on myself,” she wrote as well as sharing a series of images on Instagram showing medical records and photos of her being treated at home or in hospital . “I am grateful to my mother for kept all my medical recordsstaying by my side, never leaving my side, protecting me, supporting me, but above all believing in me in all of this”, added Bella Hadid in the message on Instagram. “However painful this experience was – concludes the post – it was also the most enlightening of my life, full of new friends, new visions and a new brain”.
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