About Lyme Disease Action

Lyme Disease Action accepts and adopts the medical guidelines issued by The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS).

Charitable aims

"The relief of persons suffering from Lyme Disease, other Borrelioses and associated diseases in particular but not exclusively by:
(1) Raising awareness of the public at large including conferences, information and support.
(2) Scientific and Medical Education and Research in topics related to Lyme Disease, other Borrelioses and associated diseases provided the useful results of such research must be published.

History

The Internet revolution of the 1990's allowed communication, between those diagnosed with Lyme and other patients with similar symptoms. This led, in 2001 to the foundation of Eurolyme, an Internet patient support group. The first Tick Borne Diseases conference was held at Hull University.

In 2002, it became apparent to the on-line participants that numbers were growing and many, many sick people were out there, suffering and without help. It was decided that a formal organisation was needed, to lobby for the treatment of patients, raise awareness of the disease and strive for more medical research. A small group of Eurolyme members decided to form the registered charity Lyme Disease Action, as a separate organisation.

Lyme Disease Action became a registered charity in 2003. We also organised the 2nd Tick Borne Diseases conference at York University. Eurolyme continued to grow, helping many hundreds of people to contact one another and find out more about Lyme and associated tick-borne diseases.

The website was started in 2004, it contains literature on Lyme Disease and associated tick-borne diseases. LDA has a policy of making it's publications available to all, and free of charge electronically. Transcripts from our conferences are also available on the website. The 3rd Tick Borne Diseases conference held at York University was a sellout, and a great success.

2005 saw continued development and the 4th conference at Sheffield University was a sellout, for the second year running. We continue to work closely with Eurolyme, whose membership is now over 1000.

LDA’s press office launched a massive media campaign during spring 2006 resulting in several articles appearing in national and local newspapers and magazines. Membership of EuroLyme is growing as more people become aware of tick- borne diseases. LDA’s fifth conference took on a new format as a one day event. This proved very popular and was fully booked. Every delegate received an information pack which included LDA’s two new leaflets: ‘What is Lyme Disease?’ and ‘Lyme borreliosis in Neurology and Psychiatry’. These are freely available to download from the LDA website.