Hi, I'm Caroline Leaf and welcome to my podcast Cleaning Up the Mental Meth.

Dealing with any chronic illness is going to have a mental toll and Lyme disease

which has physical mental and neurological symptoms is high on this list made so much

more difficult because society still does not give the threat of chronic Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses

the recognition, treatment, funding for research or health care coverage it so desperately needs.

Today on the podcast I talk to Lindsay Keys to discuss living with chronic Lyme disease and also to shed light on the mental

health toll that Lyme disease has. We discuss her story, what Lyme is, how to identify and treat it,

and her documentary that she's taking before Congress to give voice and platform to the need for

research and better health care in terms of Lyme disease.

Let's dive right in.

Well, everyone, I'm so pleased to have Lindsay Keys with me today and we're going to be talking about a really serious

topic that just does not get enough attention. It's something that's really close to my heart.

We're going to be talking about Lyme disease, what it is, how it's so underfunded, under research badly handled by the medical

system.

And it's very close to my heart because when I was only eight years old, I had tick bite

by fever, they called it tick bite for you then and I was sick for weeks and months.

And one of my children has been battling with it for years, one of my nephews, and just to try and get

treatment and the thousands of dollars, Lindsay, that we've had to spend

outside of the insurance system to just get it identified and treated is crazy.

So welcome Lindsay, I'm very, very excited to talk to you and hear your story and talk about the

mental health aspects of Lyme disease because there are plenty serious ones including things

like suicidal thoughts and so on. So welcome today to

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