Photo of Allan Little
Books by Allan Little
The Death of Yugoslavia £11.23 from Amazon.co.uk
Rebuilding Life after Brain Injury Allan Little, Sheena McDonald & Gail Robinson £13.45 from Amazon.co.uk
Notes about the Lyme Dialogues interview
Allan Little and his wife regularly stay in Massachusetts on holiday and are familiar with warning signs there about ticks carrying Lyme Disease.
In 2012, on his return to London from the States, Allan became very ill - his GP was in Scotland so he saw a GP in London who hadn't heard of Lyme Disease and told him to take paracetamol for his raging headaches.
The following day, feeling even worse, and unable to leave his home he had a home-visit from a private Doctor who gave him paracetamol and an antibiotic.
The next day he felt able to catch a train home to Edinburgh. En route, the second Doctor rang to say that Allan's Lyme blood test was negative - but it did show serious liver damage.
On his arrival at Edinburgh Allan was admitted to hospital. He was given a course of antibiotics and it took several weeks until his liver was back to normal.
Allan says that in those days, he believes that Scotland was more aware about Borreliosis (Lyme Disease) than in Southern England. He says it was common to see warning signs in the Highlands and Perthshire.
He recommends that Lyme patients should pace themselves and not set deadlines, or do too much and to monitor symptoms.
Allan believes, from his experience, that there's a scepticism about Lyme Disease among the medical establishment, especially some GP's.
He says his blood tests for Lyme were negative, he was clinically diagnosed and it was only later that he found an erythema migrans rash on the back of his knee.
He thinks that there are similar symptoms between Covid-19 and Lyme, except Lyme doesn't normally affect the respiratory tract.
Allan never had a positive test for Lyme, he was diagnosed on symptoms alone, including the rash. He accepts that you can get
Lyme again as there is no immunity.
He said that he had heard of the Scottish App which keeps track of where ticks are prevalent in Scotland.