N.L. woman who beat Lyme disease now researching illness in U.S.

A Newfoundland woman who battled Lyme disease for four years is now on the cutting edge of researching the condition in the United States.

Krista Hewlett is currently a research associate at a clinic in Connecticut doing integrated medical treatment of Lyme disease.

But a few years back she became so sick with the undiagnosed ailment, she was forced to quit medical school in Newfoundland.

Hewlett first became ill in 2008.

"I had a dramatic change in my weight. I had this intense stiff neck all of a sudden. I began to bruise all over my body. I had tense muscles. I had severely arthritic knees. And I developed sort of a chronic fatigue-like syndrome," said Hewlett, who was also working on her PhD in neuroplasticity at the time.

"Overnight, at the age of 25, I actually had these severe short-term memory problems and difficulty putting together words."

Hewlett was perplexed. Her symptoms were erratic and unpredictable.

"My symptoms were fluctuating so there was days I was completely myself and sort of felt 95 per cent normal, but there were other days where I felt I was maybe 30 per cent of the person I used to be," she said.

Hewlett struggled along at med school. But after two years, she was finally forced to take medical leave.

A MUN physician suggested she could have Lyme disease, but Hewlett dismissed that out of hand. Her symptoms just didn't seem to fit the bill. 

"I gave him four or five different reasons why it absolutely could not be Lyme disease. Based on the intense research I was doing of my own symptoms and just what I knew from being in infectious disease class in medical school, I thought this is not an infectious disease and it's certainly not what we're told and informed Lyme disease is," Hewlett said.

Meanwhile, Hewlett continued her own research. Eventually she came across documentation of a case of Lyme disease that presented with neurological symptoms similar to her own. She dug deeper and decided Lyme disease could be a possibility after all. Eventually, she left the country and travelled to New York state to get a definitive diagnosis.

"All the Canadians are leaving for treatment, it's just that we're not specialists on this disease."

Long road to recovery

Once Hewlett was diagnosed she faced 18 months of treatment with five different antibiotics. 

Lyme disease is not particularly difficult to treat, if it's caught early, according to Hewlett. But in this province — and this country — that's easier said than done. Hewlett believes there's a couple of reasons why Lyme disease is often overlooked here.

"If you go through medical training in Newfoundland, and really throughout Canada, you don't get to identify a lot of known cases of Lyme disease enough to have an assurance of how broad the range is."

Hewlett said the treatment for the disease is mainly antibiotics. But here in this country, doctors are cautious about over-prescribing antibiotics and that's another stumbling block in diagnosing and treating the illness. 

Hewlett said Lyme disease can also be a bit of a medical mystery because the symptoms can be so different for different people.

Hewlett now says she was lucky

Hewlett now believes she contracted the disease in northern Scotland. She said it was four years -— almost to the day — after she was infected when she was finally diagnosed.  

Despite that, Hewlett considers herself fortunate compared to others who have contracted the illness.

"I was actually in retrospect, one of the lucky ones. It was just four short years, but time it couldn't have felt longer. So, as an average, I was in the much lower half of people who were actually prolonged before they got diagnosed." 

Hewlett has good news for others who have contracted Lyme disease. She said she's bounced back completely from her battle with the illness.

"I'm actually healthier than before I got sick."