Man suffered months of 'terrible pain' when he became ill after Tenerife holiday

A man who suffered for months with "terrible" pain was finally diagnosed after pleading with doctors to find out what was wrong with him.

Tom Davies, from Huyton, travelled to Tenerife for a 10-day holiday in April 2022. A few days after his return, the normally fit and healthy 32-year-old started feeling unwell.

Speaking to the ECHO, Tom said: "I woke up in the middle of the night with swollen temples and felt a shooting pain in my heart. My head was pulsating, my heart was racing - It was like my body was working overtime."

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Tom went to A&E and was given a CT scan and a blood test, but was told his results were fine. Over the following months, he began to develop other symptoms.

He said: "I got bad headaches, fatigue and really bad stomach cramps. My mood swings were terrible and I started becoming really sensitive to light."

Tom battled on until July 2022, when he started experiencing serious pains in his chest and returned to A&E. He said: "It was like an electric shock, but this time through my lungs. It was so painful. It was a little bit like Covid - I had trouble breathing."

He underwent further tests and doctors assured him that his bloods were fine. But the next month, he was out for lunch with a friend and began to feel a burning sensation in his back.

He said: "I felt really achey and had terrible pain in the back of my neck. There was a massive rash on my back in the middle of my shoulder blades, like someone was buring my back."

The GP diagnosed him with cellulitis and prescibed penicillin. This gave Tom some relief. He said: "If felt a bit better, like the infection was leaving my body."

But a week after he finished his course of antibiotics, the flu-like symptoms returned. He became so ill, he had to leave his job working in logistics. He told the GP: "Whatever you've diagnosed me with, it's not gone".

But once again, he was told his bloods were fine.

Over the following weeks, things deterioriated. By mid-September, Tom says he started losing his memory. He said: "It was the worst thing I've ever experienced. I felt really faint and dizzy. I thought it was meningitis."

He kept returning to hospital and begging for a diagnosis, but was told: "We can't keep seeing you. We can't find anything wrong with you." He says went to the GP ten times and to A&E 15 times over the course of a few months.

Then he began to lose weight. Tom estimates he lost a stone and a half, and began to feel the effects of muscle wastage on his body. He said: "The entire right side of my body was weak. I was really worried."

He was referred to a neurologist, had further blood tests and then had an MRI, which was clear. He spent a week in hospital and began to feel better, but then his symptoms returned.

At his wits' end, Tom went to see a specialist in Ireland. This, he says, was the turning point for him: "the specialist got me better", he says, adding: "he gave me a clincal diagnosis".

According to Tom, the Irish specialist sent his bloods to an infectious disease laboratory in Germany. He tested positive for Lyme bacteria. In December 2022, after months of not knowing what was wrong with him, he finally had a diagnosis: Lyme disease.

Today, Tom is not yet back to his old self, but he says he is "95 percent there" after a six month course of antibiotics and special supplements. He is now at the point where he can live with it, though he still suffers from joint pain.

According to the NHS, Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks . In some people, a circular rash appears after being bitten by an infected tick, but there is not always an obvious rash. Some sufferers also get flu-like symptoms, including a high temperature, headaches, fatigue and muscle pain.

After his difficulties getting diagnosed with the disease, Tom is now determined to get the word out. He is working with Lyme Disease UK and Lyme Resource Centre to improve awareness of Lyme disease and what its symptoms are.

For Lyme Disease Awareness Month, he has helped arrange for two iconic Liverpool buildings to be lit up green. On Friday night Liverpool Town Hall went green for the evening, and on Monday, the same thing will happen to the Palm House in Sefton Park.

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