Cheltenham woman housebound after contracting Lyme disease from tick bite

• Watch Ken Goodwin's report

A woman from Cheltenham is warning people to be aware of ticks after contracting lyme disease.

Vicky Hamlin has become housebound and chronically tired after a tick bite in 2016 gave her the bacterial infection.

She used to travel across the world as a travel consultant but is now limited to her home because of the disease.

She said: "I was actually in hospital quite a lot. I was blacking out, fainting, collapsing and having all these really unusual symptoms like seizures.

"I Just kept being discharged from hospital being told there was nothing wrong.

"It's gone from such extremes from such a healthy, outgoing, active person to not being able to walk more than 20 metres - kind of like a former shell.

"For me there is a daily loss like grieving all the time for the loss of my old life and my career and so many different things.

"Also to some extent with your family they've lost you they've lost the person that used to be. It's really hard."

Vicky wants to raise awareness of the condition and warn others to act immediately if they find a tick or a bite which produces a red bullseye type rash.

Not all ticks carry lyme disease but early treatment with antibiotics can almost always cure it - Vicky is now on a mix of medication herself.

Her brother is running a series of marathons to try to raise funds for Lyme charities like Caudwell LymeCo and create awareness.

Rosie Milsom, from Caudwell LymeCo charity, said: "It's heartbreaking. We run a patient information and advice service so I do you get to talk to quite a few patients and hearing the stories never gets easy.

"I want to be able to give them that magic answer to say 'right this is what you need to do and this is how you can get help on the NHS'.

"As with Vicky and her situation, a lot of patients feel they've got no choice but to pay for kind of expensive private treatment which is sometimes experimental and sometimes doesn't work."