Michelle De Feo was at the top of her modeling career when she started feeling tired and getting terrible migraines.
It continued to get worse and worse. Eventually, she started getting vertigo so bad that she had to stop working, and was often bedridden.
She went to her doctor who diagnosed her with depression, and gave her anti-depressants. However, it just made her feel worse.
So she tried another doctor, who said her migraines were related to her vertigo, and gave her different medication for her headaches.
However, she said her symptoms only got worse. Then, when she was talking to her friends, one of them mentioned that she might have Lyme disease.
So she went back to her doctor and suggested this to him.
“He said you’ve got to be bitten,” said Michelle. “I said I’d had a couple of bites but I didn’t think anything about it.”
Her doctor gave her a blood test, which came back negative. But she knew something was wrong. So she discovered a $910 blood test in Germany that provided a more thorough screening for Lyme disease. So she ordered it. Her cousin, a nurse, performed the test on her, and according to Michelle, “It came back positive within about five days.”
She’s been in treatment ever since.
She’s being treated at the Breakspear Medical clinic in Hertfordshire, and her treatment is intense.
She’s given intravenous antibiotics for three hours every day. She is given oxygen four hours per day.
She’s finishing up her IV medication this weekend, and will continue to have oxygen for the next two months.
Now, she wants to spread awareness.
“I think the NHS really needs to sort this out,” the England-based model said to the Daily Mail. “There are probably thousands of people with Lyme disease. In Colchester, you have got Highwoods County Park, areas like Boxted, Great Horkesley and Langham, where there are no signs up to warn people of Lyme disease.”
