Dr Gary Lee from specialist Isle of Wight Fibromyalgia clinic, The Future Clinic, and Professor Puri, an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at Imperial College London, will begin their important research programme to determine the prevalence of Borrelia (Lyme Disease), and associated infections, in patients with Fibromyalgia this month.
£5,000 crowdfunder
As previously reported, following OnTheWight’s article about the
€21,000 plans for the research project, the owner of Armin Labs in Germany made a personal donation of €10,000 to the project as well as agreeing to do all blood testing at cost.
Dr Lee and Professor Puri are so keen to get the project going that they’ve decided to invest some of their own money (and of course time) to kickstart the research, but are also hoping to raise around £5,000 through crowdfunding.
Dr Lee: Amazing collaboration
Ahead of the research starting next week, Dr Lee told OnTheWight,
“It has been an amazing collaboration of people helping and giving time; truly in the spirit of what we’ve been trying to achieve.”
Make a donation
If you would like to contribute to the project costs for this vital research, Dr Lee suggests this could be anything from the price of a cup of good coffee (£2.50) to as much as you can afford.
Raising £5,000 initially will allow them to pay the full laboratory fees for the Lyme testing and develop new projects. All the money will go towards the research and the only administration costs are those of PayPal.
If you leave you details when you donate, The Future Clinic will keep you posted of their progress and how they use the money.
Outline of the work
Dr Lee explained in more detail,
“This first stage of research starts in May 2019, with the primary aim of carrying out a systematic study of the prevalence of Borrelia (Lyme Disease) and viral infections using a cohort of people suffering with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia.
“Secondary aims include assessing the association of any such infections with clinical (including neurological and cardiovascular) symptoms, muscle strength, gene expression, and electrocardiographic, mitochondrial, vagal, and neuropsychological functions.
“We will be addressing all of the primary aims with this first tranche of work in May, and some of the secondary aims, but will need further funding to complete all the latter objectives.”
He went on to say,
“Research in this area is not mainstream at the moment, so finding initial funding is difficult. Our aim is to do a number of studies, funded partly by us as individuals.
“Once we have produced data and publications, we hope this well increase awareness and, with that awareness, more funding opportunities.”
Stay in touch
We’ll bring you more news as we get it, but in the meantime, do visit the The Future Clinic’s Website for more detail about their services and Like the Facebook Page for regular updates.
Image: Lucas Vasques under CC BY 2.0
