It’s been a rollercoaster few years for Justin Bieber, although what part of his life hasn’t been a rollercoaster? Anyway, he took to Instagram today to address the social media speculation about the fact that he hasn’t really looked his best lately, and explained that it’s because he has Lyme disease.
“While a lot of people kept saying Justin Bieber looks like shit, on meth etc. they failed to realize I’ve been recently diagnosed with Lyme disease, not only that but had a serious case of chronic mono which affected my, skin, brain function, energy, and overall health.”
To save you a Google, Lyme disease is a disease spread by tick bites, and is notoriously hard to diagnose because there are so many symptoms that could be explained by something else. People with Lyme disease tend to get fever, headaches, tiredness, joint pains. If left untreated, the Lyme disease infection can spread through the bloodstream and can cause an infection in the brain and heart.
Basically it’s a bad time.
Thankfully it’s not something you have to spend time worrying about here in Australia, because we don’t have Lyme disease here. We definitely have ticks that spread similar diseases, so sorry about that bit, but the Australian government doesn’t recognise the specific strain of bacteria that causes Lyme.
If you get it while overseas, and have it diagnosed quickly enough then usually a quick course of antibiotics will do the trick. If it isn’t caught quickly though, it can hang around for years.
Justin Bieber also announced on his post that he’s going to be making a YouTube documentary series explaining more, probably about Lyme disease and how he’s going to move forward with recovery. We’ll keep an eye out for the videos. In the meantime, it doesn’t sound like it’s been an easy ride for the Biebs, and I hope he recovers sooner rather than later.
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