Suffering from the anguish of chronic Lyme disease

By Sue-Ann Levy

Paige Spencer in her old bedroom that she now calls her "drug room " on May 13, 2015. She suffers from Lyme disease. (Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun)

TORONTO - Paige Spencer can’t remember a day in the past six months when she didn’t feel pain everywhere in her body.
Most days she lives off Percocet and Gravol to calm down her stomach enough to eat.
She never knows what each day will bring.
“There is not a single inch of my body that I’ve not felt pain in,” says Spencer during an interview at her home last week. “I’m living in a constant nightmare … like a scary movie where you walk up to a corner and don’t know what’s around that corner.”
After suffering for 14 long years with many serious undiagnosed medical issues and through too many trips to the hospital to count, the pretty, articulate soon to be 21-year-old was finally diagnosed in July 2013 with late-stage chronic Lyme disease.
She takes 70 pills and up to six needles a day, all of which she administers herself. The young lady, who always dreamt of being an actress, is on a special diet and has a permanent PICC line in her left arm — a form of catheter to administer IV antibiotics — that goes right into a valve near her heart.
In her special treatment room — stocked with medications, equipment and two donated wheelchairs — a giant chart tells her what she needs to take by the hour. After enjoying a few months of respite last summer, she suffered a bad relapse in December and has been enduring unspeakable pain since...Continue reading...