Motivational anecdote: A page from Avril Lavigne’s battle with Lyme disease

Lavigne narrates her debilitating experience with the disease, revealing that it was the worst time of her life

Pop singer Avril Lavigne has truly been one of the biggest teenage sensations for all millennials. Here’s looking back at her fight with Lyme disease with which she was diagnosed in 2014.

Lyme disease is one of the most common vector-borne diseases in the US, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, a kind of infected tick that transmits the germ to humans.

Lavigne narrates her debilitating experience with the disease on Good Morning America, where she reveals that it was the worst time of her life as she tried to convince medical practitioners that something was really wrong with her.

Lavigne states that during the first few months, she was awakened by night sweats and would feel so fatigued that she would be unable to get out of bed. “I saw my doctor right away, got blood tests, got swabbed, and they didn’t really know what was wrong with me.”

“They would pull out their little computer and say, ‘Uh, chronic fatigue syndrome,’ or ‘Why don’t you just play some piano, Avril?’ or, like, ‘Are you depressed?’ This is what they do to a lot of people that have Lyme disease. They don’t know what to tell you so they tell you you’re crazy,” she says, adding she suspected Lyme disease two months into experiencing the symptoms, following which, she visited a Lyme disease specialist.

In 2018, having recovered from the health-related hiatus, she wrote on her website, “Having gone through the battle of my lifetime, I’m stronger than ever and looking forward to sharing my renewed voice and energy for my life with my fans through this new music.”

Lavigne, having established her own foundation to assist people with Lyme disease, provides resources, funding treatment grants and aims to advance scientific research on the disease.