Landscape Designer and Broadcaster, Bunny Guinness talks about her experience of Lyme and various treatments. She says she now "has her mojo back."
Books
Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated by HRH The Prince of Wales and Bunny Guinness
Garden Workshop: 30 Designer Features
Family Gardens
Garden Transformations: Designer Secrets and Tricks of the Trade
Garden your way to Health and Fitness
Gardeners’ QuestionTime Plant Chooser
Decorative Gardening with Bunny Guinness: Exciting and Fun Projects to Transform Your Garden
Creating a Family Garden: Magical Outdoor Spaces for All Ages
Gardeners’ Question Time - All Your Gardening Problems Solved
(BBC Radio 4)
Notes from the Lyme Dialogues interview
Bunny saw several Consultants, she had several diagnoses eg. Polymyalgia rheumatica & vasculitis and inflammatory disease, she was put on steroids “for ages”. She says this has caused her to have cataracts in her eyes and two days’ earlier she had a cataract operation.
She had a red circle on her leg and bouts of very hight temperature, fatigue and a resting pulse of 100. A Lyme test in Germany was positive.
Her son, who is a Doctor said that when he was doing his GP training if someone had come in with a similar rash he would have put them immediately on antibiotic treatment.
On her journey to trying to get better she went to the Breakspear Hospital for a test and was told Bunny had Lyme Disease. A 3 month course of antibiotics followed.
She then tried a heat treatment and a special diet but didn’t feel any better. She says the treatment was expensive.
Bunny was incredibly stiff and couldn’t even get out of her bath so she went back to her GP who referred her to Adenbrookes Hospital.
Her inflammatory indices were high. The Consultant did exhaustive tests but the Lyme test was now negative.
She was prescribed TNF drugs for inflammation/autoimmune disease. She was prescribed weekly injections of Benepali, which has brought down her inflammatory levels.
Bunny says that she does generally try to rest for 20 minutes after lunch.
She mentions a mat which sends low electric current through the body which a friend recommended, so she bought one and she has used it for 20 minutes in the evening for a year and a half, but she doesn’t know whether it’s the mat or just relaxing which makes her feel better. She says her dog certainly loves it too and joins her!
Regarding being outdoors, she says that once you’ve had Lyme you wouldn’t go bare legged again.
Bunny says she is only working 5 days a week now with rests - before she was ill she would regularly work 6 or 7 days a week.
She says she calls me “The Lyme Help Desk”.
Bunny still gets stiff knees but is feeling more positive these days, “I’ve got my mojo back again!”