The Real $Cost Of Lyme Disease

We are cleaning out our paper files and trying to get everything down to scans. I picked up the two-inch-thick notebook I kept on my Lyme paperwork and found the contract that had the cost of my Antibiotic Infusion treatments.

It will blow your mind that it cost $40,000 a month for just the Antibiotic Infusion treatments and necessary medical supplies. That did not include prescriptions for which I took well over 20-25 at a time or supplements which I took at least 15 a day. Insurance only covered part of the prescriptions, not one penny towards my treatments or supplements. 

$40,000 a month! We had to take out a second mortgage on our home since my treatments went on for 18 months! Now tell me it’s not a serious illness. I almost died, I had Adrenal fatigue which was getting close to adrenal failure. That’s after all the money spent.

I’ve written many times about the time importance of what you need to do to prevent Lyme Disease but have not focused on the real cost, it’s not just your health, it hits your pocketbook damn hard.

This is a photo of the day my Infusion post was inserted at George Washington Hospital in D.C.

This bandage had to be changed every Sunday, it was a very sterile and complicated, painful process. It’s extremely tender and due to the risk of infection, the adhesive is very strong making it difficult and painful to take off.

Here’s a great photo of what was involved in taking it off each week and the medical waste. It was about an hour-long process due to how slowly you have to take the bandage off due to the pain. You have to put the bandage back in the same place every week to keep the port infection-free.

I have permanent Brain damage in the form of early-onset Dementia from Lyme. What happens is the Spirokets look for a major organ to set up a house, and do damage. Some have the virus go to their kidneys or liver, mine went to the brain. It’s like 58 years of memories with a machine gun bullet put in them. It’s devastating and will someday rob me of my complete memory. Dementia is not an easy topic, I watched my granny die from Dementia and it’s an ugly one. If you’ve read my Lyme journey you know that I chose to commit suicide before I lose my memory. That’s how harrowing it was to watch my granny die and I won’t do that to my husband. This is my reality. I don’t know when it will come and I hope it’s a long time from now. I do have a plan, no one knows and that’s best.

I hope this post gives you a different perspective than my other post and will make you think very hard the next time you are out and about. I wish Lyme on no one!

Melinda