Amy Schumer Reveals She Has Lyme Disease: 'I Have Maybe Had It for Years'
Amy Schumer has been diagnosed with Lyme disease.
The actress and comedian, 39, opened up about her diagnosis on Tuesday in an Instagram post featuring a throwback photo with her "first ever fishing pole."
"Anyone get LYME this summer? I got it and I’m on doxycycline," she wrote. "I have maybe had it for years. Any advice? Can you have a glass of wine or 2 on it?"
"I know to stay out of the sun. I’m also taking these herbs from cape cod called lyme-2," Schumer continued, asking followers to comment with their own experience with Lyme disease. "I also want to say that I feel good and am excited to get rid of it."
Lyme disease is a potentially debilitating infection caused by bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted through the bite of an infected blacklegged tick.
Early stage symptoms include headaches, flu-like symptoms, joint pain, fatigue and sometimes a rash that has many different shapes including one which may look like a bullseye centered on the tick bite.
Late stage Lyme symptoms can include paralysis, agonizing joint pain, neurological problems, severe headaches, problems with memory, hearing and vision, inflammation of the brain and inflammation of the heart.
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PEOPLE previously discussed Lyme disease with Dr. Raphael Kellman, the founder of the Kellman Center for Integrative and Functional Medicine, to learn more, including the most common symptoms. He said the symptoms "can wax and wane" day by day.
"It could be post-exertional fatigue or fatigue they have one day and then the next day they feel somewhat better," said Kellman. "Typically, Lyme disease is associated with a brain fog, headaches, difficulty concentrating … muscle and joint pain, tingling and numbness, neck pain, sometimes palpitations, different types of neurological symptoms. … Anxiety is one of the symptoms as well, and sometimes the anxiety can be debilitating and can even present as panic attacks."
"One day the joint pain is here, and then the next day it’s somewhere else — it’s migratory," he added. "The tingling and numbness and the strange types of neurological symptoms, like a sense of electrical currents in them, can change from day to day."
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Schumer has been open about her health in the past. Most recently, the Trainwreck star got candid about struggling with hyperemesis gravidarum, or severe morning sickness, while she was while she was pregnant with son Gene David, now 16 months.
“It was really really hard,” Schumer, who was on tour for months before she was forced to cancel the remaining dates as pregnancy complications left her too ill to keep traveling, recalled during her appearance on Sunday Today with Willie Geist last month.
“Going on stage and doing a show like that, even though it’s physical and everyone's looking at you, it’s still my job,” she explained. “If you’re a teacher, or a nurse, or anything — if you are really sick and you're pregnant and you still have to work, no one gives you any leeway. They really don’t.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9au0iFJtsk/Credit: Amy Schumer/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9au0iFJtsk/Credit: Amy Schumer/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9au0iFJtsk/Credit: Amy Schumer/Instagram
During the conversation, Schumer also revealed that although “life is so much more beautiful” since welcoming her son, being pregnant again is not in the cards for her.
“We did IVF and IVF was really tough on me. I don't think I could ever do IVF again,” said Schumer, who previously told fans that she secured at least one embryo following their first round.
"I decided that I can't be pregnant ever again,” she added, noting that while she and her husband Chris Fischer have “thought about a surrogate,” they won’t be expanding their family in the near future. “I think we’re going to hold off for right now.”
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