Guest Profile
Rafal Reinfuss
Rafal Reinfuss is a Lyme survivor. He is a volunteer and also a vice-chairman of Polish Lyme Patients' Association, SChnB Lyme Poland. Before he fell ill with Lyme disease, he hardly knew his family doctor. He was a healthy young person always living an active life, hiking in the mountains on a regular basis, cycling a lot, enjoying camping in the summertime. Ironically, the unfortunate tick encounter that caused his illness happened in the beautiful August afternoon in his friends garden, while cutting grass. It took another several months and another tick bite for the illness to explode with the full strength as a disseminated neurological Lyme disease. That was 5 yrs ago. Then, there was 1,5 yrs of a combined antibiotic therapy, followed by a year of natural therapies. Back to present times, he is fortunate enough to enjoy being symptom-free for 2 yrs now. He is almost back to his old self now. Although not as strong and durable as he used to be before the illness, he does mountain hiking again. He's so grateful to have his health back and so happy to be able to work with a small team of people dedicated to helping the fellow sufferers and working towards improving the tough situation the Lyme sufferers find themselves in today.
Lyme Poland compared to other patients organizations encountered in his country is a small one and not able to enjoy that much of a support of institutions and sponsors, as other ones do, yet they manage to publish books, give lectures, organize seminars for doctors and other medical professionals. Last year they persuaded Polish Ministry of Health to open the debate on the current standards of diagnosing and treating of Lyme borreliosis in our country. Finally there are specialists from different fields of medical practice working on their propositions aimed at improving diagnosing and treating of Lyme borreliosis in Poland. We hope that this will, over a period of time, lead to improvement in the situation of Lyme patients in Poland and hopefully, beyond.
