Your Kind Feedback


Thanks for your many kind comments and support for my book Lyme Madness™.

You're the reason I keep going.

I look forward to reading your book, Lori. Without the dedication of mothers, we would be absolutely nowhere with Lyme disease. It is MOTHERS, concerned about their families, their children, that has sparked ALL progress in this field!!!!

- Kenneth Liegner, MD

Lori, I read your story about Lyme disease. If only I had a $ for everyone who was told their problem is in their head. Technically, I guess it’s correct. But the comment is also so wrong – and it kills any hope for people after hearing that. When HOPE is gone, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, etc., crash and makes the inflicted even worse.

- Dave Siever, Mind Alive Inc.

With Lyme Madness, Lori Dennis joins the Pantheon of alarmed mothers who have ‘banged the teapots’ to force dense and complacent governments DO SOMETHING to address the dangerous disease they perceived devastating their children, families and communities.  Like the title of Polly Murray’s book The Widening Circle, Lyme Madness is a triple entendre.

First is the irrational way the public health power structures have formulated their conceptualization of and response to the illness, the U.S.’s Centers for Disease Control, lost bellwether, leading its own as well as other nations off a cliff.  Second, the patient population, abandoned and ridiculed by the medical establishment, government and private health insurers, is often left to fend for itself in an effort to find health and healing.  This can sometimes lead down dangerous paths of uncharted territory as desperate patients cast about, like drowning rats, for something, anything, some ‘life-line’ to keep their sinking heads above water.  Third, Lori Dennis and many other mothers of patients and the patients themselves (to borrow the classic line from the movie Network) are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.  Maddeningly too, increasing patient militancy is met with impunity.  However, as more and more individuals at all levels of society are being impacted, power relationships are shifting and the Centers for Disease Control and the errant authors of the 2000 and 2006 Infectious Diseases Society of America Lyme Disease Guidelines are finding themselves increasingly on the defensive.

Lori Dennis, a psychotherapist, shares her and her son’s experiences down what she calls the ‘rabbit hole’ of Lyme disease.  Together, son and mother struggle to define diagnosis, traverse the vicissitudes of the illness and the challenges of discovering, of the available allopathic and alternative medical approaches, those which enable her son to recover.  This eye-opener will be helpful to others who find themselves grappling with Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, navigating an arena full of contradictory advice and adversarial experts.  It is also a clarion call to all to compel governments and their public health infrastructures to acknowledge the many problems with which these diseases confront us and to commit the financial, scientific and medical resources and the grit to solve them – to end the madness.

 

- Kenneth B. Liegner, M.D.

After reading Lyme Madness it raises the question—what is the more powerful force, a dysfunctional healthcare system or a motivated mother who wants the best for her son? The problems her son encountered accessing proper assessment and care is a story we have heard far too many times, in Canada, in the United States and in many other countries. It is frustrating to see clinical healthcare policy created by bureaucrats and researchers who lack true clinical expertise and are distant from the clinical realities and the full price of suffering and impairment caused by Lyme and associated diseases. Many will read this book and identify with her frustration, be motivated by her persistence and gain some insights on effective strategies. One thing is clear, when dealing with an illness that is controlled by dogma and special interests, it is necessary to do thorough research and to be a tenacious advocate. I am sure this book will help others who are searching for answers and solutions.

 

- Robert C Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA

Lori Dennis’ incredible commitment to helping her bright, competent, Lyme-infected adult son Matt is only seconded by the tremendous contribution she has made with this memoir. This is the book she and Matt and thousands of Lyme-impacted people needed four years ago … 20 years ago. Don’t be deterred by Dennis' periodic, though well-earned, polemics - if Lyme is somehow in your life, this one book can catapult you years ahead in your quest for understanding, and a path thru the Lyme labyrinth so vividly described herein.

This is a cogent, incisive, well-researched, well-developed contribution born of enormous frustration and disappointment with not just the allopathic (Western) medical system, its insurers, its pharmaceutical brethren and the endemic politics of power and profit that can so adversely affect any individual trying to overcome what Dennis presents here as this tremendously complicated illness, but all providers who are not Lyme Literate and “try" anyway, often, as evinced here, doing more harm than good. Epistemology is the study of how we know or make sense of things - Lyme Madness is a call to all providers to become Lyme literate and to make room for Lyme sufferers in their epistemologies and in their practices.

We can do much better! Ultimately, this memoir is yet another incredibly generous gift Lori Dennis offers her son, other Lyme sufferers, and those who love and care for them - and who just won’t quit! A formidable read.

 

- Dr. Greg O'Donohue, MBA (c.psych)

“Lyme Madness is a compelling, heart-breaking story of a Canadian mother dedicating all of her time, energy, intelligence and love to get her son back to health. It reads like a travel journey. A journey into what the author rightly calls Alice’s rabbit hole to Wonderland, set in the context of modern day health care. It is a well written and documented book.

This book clearly shows what the love of a mother can do and how many mothers are now standing up for their ill children. It will be a guide for other parents when their children suddenly fall ill, are misdiagnosed, mistreated and finally shunned or invalidated by the doctors you supposed would be knowledgeable and willing to help you. Or it may even be a clear warning to look into this subject, before they fall as ill as countless others have, all over the world.

Madness has two meanings. It is the experience of discovering the madness of a system invested by groupthink, vested interests, misinformation and corruption along with a system that punishes doctors who are willing to help parents like Lori Dennis. The second is the madness or anger that arises after years of frustration of seeing your own child and many like him suffer needlessly. This book deals with both.

The author’s personal experience combined with her professional knowledge as a therapist will provide other parents with a guide through this rabbit hole and will save them much frustration, time and money. It provides them with insights into the many medical and psychological pitfalls in Lymeland, with practical approaches, with a brave investigation of reasons why the status quo has been like this for over forty years and with a range of stories by other people. These personal stories will validate other parents and Lyme patients’ own sanity on an often lonely journey back to health––with the glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel that this book fortunately also provides.

May this book add to the mounting evolution of activities to end the Madness of negating and downplaying Lyme as the global epidemic that it is.”

 

 

- Huib Kraaijeveld, author of “Shifting the Lyme Paradigm; the Caretakers’ Guide through the Labyrinth” and founder of the On Lyme Foundation, the Netherlands

I applaud Lori Dennis for her efforts in attempting to educate the public about this life-altering/life threatening infection misclassified as a simple nuisance disease. Personal experiences described in her book “Lyme Madness” are not new however as stories like this have been hidden from the public for over three decades. The focus over this period has been to discredit the horribly sick and disabled as opposed to finding a cure for this antibiotic resistant/tolerant superbug; truly “Madness” for sure and a crime against humanity on a growing global scale. Those who have studied the wrongful handling of this disease believe that the rush to create a vaccine for Lyme led to its mishandling. In fact, the lead investigators of the two previous Lyme vaccines claim that Lyme is easily diagnosed and easily cured with 1-2 weeks of ABX. Prior to vaccine development, persistent infection (Chronic Lyme) was commonly reported in the literature. Shameful affair indeed as a congressional investigation is long overdue.


Kudos to Lori Dennis for writing “Lyme Madness”, a must read for the ill-informed.


 

- Carl Tuttle, Lyme Activist Hudson, NH USA

Thank you for this Lori Dennis, M.A.,RP, Lyme disease is a horribly cruel infection. It is as if the Lyme pathogen keeps the sufferer alive just enough to be able to keep making copies of itself, like a living suffering factory. Good luck with this important project.”

- Dr. Clifford. S. Saunders, Managing Director at Centre for Applied Neuroscience in Business

Congratulations Lori on this exceptional and courageous step you are taking on behalf of your son and all those out there suffering. I hope your book and social media sites give people a safe place to go to share. With you all the way!

- Holly Bridges, Author The Unhysterectomy

This is the most powerful and accurate description of "The madness of Chronic Lyme Disease" that I have ever read. Thank you Lori Dennis and asking all of you to please read and share!

- MH

Thank god for you and your book. I hope people are listening! As a mother of a Lyme warrior, I can totally relate.

- RD

Cannot wait to read your book! I too have Lyme and it pains my mom terribly to see me on my bad days. You and your son are in my prayers.

- SP

Complete madness -- couldn't have been said any better!

- CU

That's all I wish for. That the medical system and loved ones wake up to the harsh reality of this hideous disease.

- LF

Aaahhhhh I can't wait to get a copy.

- EM

Lyme Madness. A true story of our struggles to be heard and treated. Someone must make an impact! Someway!

- NW

Looks like a good book. I am glad your son had you to rescue him. So many have no one who listens.

- MG

I can't thank you enough for writing your book. I read some of your words and it is as if they came straight from my heart and mouth. Chronic grief resonates with me. Been through an endless nightmare with our teenage son. Sorry for all of the grief you have experienced and I agree going through this as you watch a child struggle while Constantly feeling helpless is the worst grief I have been through in my life as well. Nothing compares. Nothing. Feels like a hamster wheel. Looking like ivig is next step him. Many interruptions for him last few years. Many. We all long for normal and I keep saying that if it resurfaces for us, I will never take normal for granted again. Heartfelt thanks for your honesty and bringing attention to this silent epidemic!!!!! Reading your words today made me feel for the first time that someone gets it .... the chronic grief!!!! Heartfelt love and prayers for your precious son and your family.

- SD

Lori - your words are courageous and powerful and they break my heart. Yes..intense grief, loss, fear - those perfectly describe the raw and roller coaster emotions which we face as lyme mamas and papas - knowing what is wrong with our kids - whether young or grown up - and having to fight at every turn to get them the help and acknowledgement and timely treatment which they deserve. It is scary to think that if we speak out in Canada about what is truly going on with our kids, that we will be victimized and labeled with such terms as Munchhausen's - or, people just tend to avoid us instead because it is too painful for them to relate to us as they just don't know what to say. I look at my 3 beautiful girls and I cry out in anguish - please God, please protect them from all of this, please heal them, please give them a hope and a future..and then I have to trust..that He will grant me the strength, the courage and the tenacity to stay strong and courageous..and not to allow fear and grief to consume me. Our journey through lyme has just begun..and I pray, that there will be an endpoint.

- SF

I'm thrilled about this book. I'm almost a year into knowing I have chronic neurological Lyme but probably thirty plus years of having coinfections. I want to ask of in your book you touch upon how family doesn't get it and how they might. Mine has a hard time accepting its a DIY illness and question my decisions all the time. Because doctors and conventional medicine knows best, right? Thank you for telling your story. From one writer and mother to another.

- LA

You are an incredibly remarkable woman... and I applaud the herculean efforts you make every day to learn, to educate, and to find the answers to Matt's illness. He is so lucky to have you on this terrifying journey... as are all Lyme sufferers, who are benefiting from your strength and passion. Looking forward to reading your book.

- BC

You have opened up your heart and your soul. Unafraid to cut deeply into your heartbreaking experiences and allow others to see your pain and anguish. This journey of yours and the constructive outlet which helped you write "Lyme Madness" is going to be a gift to others who are suffering too. A life line when they think they have none. Looking forward to having my hands on a copy in June!!!

- SD

As a chronic Lyme sufferer, I am so sorry for your grief and your son's Lyme. I eagerly await your book. Thank you for writing it.

- DC

Thank you for so brilliantly describing the horrors of this nightmare and the battles we fight with the "deniers" who merely shuffle us through the system. I look forward to your book!

- PM

Thank you for sharing how uneducated the mainstream medical professionals are about this insidious disease. Thank you for writing this, sharing this, and spreading awareness. The CDC and IDSA must also be held accountable for their terrible guidelines. Thank you.

- LD

Keep fighting the good fight Lori Dennis. May you fly on the wings of angels as you continue to shed light on this horrible disease. ❤️

- CB

Amazing! Every word is so on point.

- RP

A book that is long in the coming as almost every single person suffering from Lyme disease has experienced the madness. Thank you Lori Dennis for your bravery and your brilliance.

- CM

THIS...THIS right here! To ALL those people who asked me "are you sure this isn't just all in your head". I can now say, with confidence, YES, YES, IT IS ALL IN MY HEAD! Thank you, Lori Dennis! Looking forward to the release of Lyme Madness. I cannot thank you enough for representing your son and us, who are suffering, so brilliantly! Another amazing article that nails it!!!💚💚

- SP

So right on! Thanks for raising awareness Lori Dennis.♥♥ Grateful for supporters like you.

- HC

An easy, rational, well written plea for every medical professional to give pause, consideration and thought to the social construct called "Lyme”.



- LP

Lori, keep up the great work!!! thank you for doing what you are doing and putting in the blood sweat and tears into this thing.

- SM

Can't wait for this fellow Ontarian's book to come out....PLEASE read this.....FINALLY someone like Lori is stepping up and out and really telling the ugly truth of just how HORRIBLE it is to be a Canadian who suffers from Chronic Lyme.

- HK

My friend Lori Dennis is a courageous Mama, a beautiful warrior and I choose to join her on the frontlines in this very lonely, misunderstood and yet necessary battle for truth, justice, kindness and openness to this very serious disease.

- F.S.

This sounds like an especially awesome book because of your different view point. Sadly of course because you are a mom and this is your boy, but I feel you will be heard more than most books on Lyme because you are speaking for all of us with this horrific Chronic Lyme Disease and your are not a "doctor" or "patient", but a "witness", and eye witness. The fact is for me, and a lot of us, I have lost many friends, boyfriends + two boyfriends even asked me to marry them. All are no longer in my life - and that's ok! My point is that you have stayed with your son and witnessed this disease first hand. I am even estranged from my own mother, she gave up before I was finally diagnosed (and I promise that is ok too!) because I did not give up on myself. This has been a great life lesson for me. I am blessed with genuine and loving and supportive people in my life - including my son. ! I am looking forward to getting the word out about your book. Perhaps I'll be able to buy several books and give them to friends as well... Keep up the good work, we need you! (after 7+ months of treatment, I am about 15% better. Whew! Blessings, V.J.

- V.J.
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Together, let's stop LYME MADNESS™