For our Wake Up To Lyme campaign this year, we’ve created several animations and a video to help spread our message of tick bite prevention and Lyme disease awareness. We started off with our campaign introduction video…
Caroline Fearnley, our Social Media Manager, commissioned this piece which was created by animator, RoPu Chen. Caroline shared a few thoughts with us below.
“I felt a short and snappy animation would inspire people to get involved in our annual awareness campaign. We all know how busy life can be and how much information we sift through on a daily basis, so it was important to make the content short and concise. I also wanted it to have a fun feel so that people would realise how fun it can be to raise awareness! The animation RoPu created last year has been really popular across our social media channels, she’s such a talented animator and brought our ideas to life in a really imaginative way! It has been a privilege to collaborate on this project and I know I’m biased, but I’m really pleased with the finished product!”
Lyme Disease – Key Points on Diagnosis, Testing and Treatment
Although there are various resources available to healthcare professionals with guidance on diagnosing and treating Lyme disease, it was our goal to produce an animation in a digestible format which condensed key points from the NICE guideline and the RCGP Lyme disease toolkit in a hope to reach more healthcare professionals on social media and via our website.
Dr Rachael Llewelyn is a GP who has had Lyme disease herself, she told us, “I can tell you how frighteningly easy it is to miss this diagnosis. I nearly missed it in myself. This ‘new great imitator’ should be on the ‘diagnostic radar’ of every frontline health professional and every doctor in every specialty” We quite agree!
Living with Late Lyme Disease
This animation was produced with the help of patients and their families.
It can be challenging to describe what it’s like to live with late Lyme disease. Diagnosis is often delayed, symptoms vary from day to day and it can often be difficult to access treatment. It’s not uncommon for patients to give up trying to explain what they are going through, even to those close to them, as it can be so complicated to explain.
This animation aims to provide patients with a short, shareable summary of what late Lyme disease is and how it can impact upon sufferers’ lives – physically, emotionally, and financially.
We also share tips on how family and friends can help. We developed the script and ideas for imagery with a number of patients from our community to try and make sure that all of the important messages were included. Talented animator, RoPu Chen from Grain Rice Projects then pulled all of the ideas together to design and create the animation.
Thank you to all patients who took part in this project and particularly to Azur Fangeat, aged 8, whose voice can be heard at the end of the clip.
Speaking about his role, Azur said, “Working on this project was fun while, in fact, the message was quite sad and very important to get across. I’ve known about Lyme disease for years now because my dad is affected by the condition, but none of my friends are aware of how serious a tick bite can be. So helping raising awareness was important to me and needed, to prevent people getting ill while still enjoying the pleasures of being outdoor in nature.”
Thank you to, Azur and his mother RoPu who created these animations!
Patient Perspectives on Living with Late Lyme Disease
The lifeblood of LDUK is our Online Community and sadly many of our members are chronically ill with Lyme disease. We felt it was important to develop a project showing just how the illness affects people and how invisible it can be. We asked members to submit a captioned selfie sharing the impact the illness has had on their lives. A big thank you to all of those who contributed to this project. Some of the participants have shares their motivation to get involved below:
“I participated to raise much-needed awareness of this poorly-understood, multi-system, debilitating disease which leaves patients to live with intolerable symptoms without medical support.” – Lyn
“I joined the project as I wanted to give back to LDUK, having found support and friendships via their Online Community during my illness.” – Adam
“I wanted to take part to show the sadness this misunderstood disease brings about, it strips you of every normal part of life. Some days I can look well and behave well, but it’s definitely not how I’m feeling on the inside.” – Natalie
“I want to help others gain access to better information than I had. If I can help increase knowledge and understanding about Lyme disease (even in the smallest of ways) that for me, can only be a positive!” – Tracy
“I agreed to participate in the Wake up to Lyme campaign to raise awareness, to help people understand how Lyme disease can affect people directly as well as their friends and family, and to reduce any stigma surrounding visible/invisible conditions and disabilities. I also wanted to show that positives can come from such seemingly negative situations” – Jeff