The Association

My name is Audrey Thorner, I am 30 years old and I suffer from intense paralyzing pains, multiple neurological, joint, muscle, cognitive, etc. symptoms since I’m 10, because of the Lyme disease and the Ehlers Danlos Symptom.

I created this association to find help to heal me and get better.
It began, when everything was going well in my life, with the onset of a “strange” rash, announcing the beginning of a wide variety of symptoms that my doctor said were unimportant.

During several years, things worsened, to the point to spend my teenage years between sprains and tendinitis, crutches and total immobilization. Symptoms continued to worsen, new ones appeared, until violent seizures took me to the hospital. The unknown disease was settling...

At a time when I should have gone out and had fun with my friends, I was paralyzed in a bed, waiting for the pain to stop. My life was happening between quieter periods and terrible seizures, without any solution, any help and any diagnosis.

A few years later, my condition has gotten dreadfully worse, more than never, and irreversibly. These symptoms, which previously appeared by seizures, settled and never left, completely preventing me from moving and living my life.

After yet another move, my new family doctor finally took my symptoms seriously. After long months of research, he made a diagnosis unfortunately never recognized by the French medical community.

It’s the Lyme disease.

Before the disease definitely worsens to the point where I was not able to get out of the house anymore, I still could have gone by ambulance to take the baccalaureate exams, in lying position, with a helper qui writing for me. This will get me a very nice article in the newspaper! Read the story here (in french! but you can see pictures!)

My life consists now of very few things. I am invalid, disabled, trapped in a painful body. I live in my bed, without being able to move, in the dark...

Unfortunately, my disease is not recognized, and I don’t receive any help in France. I’m literally left to DIE alone at home, because the solutions are elsewhere.

Because abroad, as is the case in Germany, I am actually recognized as suffering from a severe chronic form of SPPT: Syndrome of Persistent Polymorphic symptoms after a Tick bite, a new name including the chronic forms of Lyme disease, borreliosis and its co-infections.


France is way behind on the subject whereas there are already a lot of treatments abroad.


However, angry doctors make themselves known, thousands of not-recognized and recognized patients are mobilized into associations to try to make things happen, lawyers are engaged, media are finally covering the tragedy...


The scale and nature of the epidemic is such that tens of thousands of people get infected each year in France, without being aware and, therefore, without being treated. And the more time passes without diagnosis et without treatment against bacteria, the more the disease sets in and worsens to the point, for the ill person, to lose each second the chance to respond positively to the good treatments. 


Under pressure, the state therefore started to mobiliser to create new laws in France. However, waiting many years to see things happen from an administrative perspective, while solutions already exist, is intolerable for all the ill persons whose living conditions are deteriorating or are dying with every second. Like me qui who almost DIED this summer.
After over 16 years of disease, medical wandering and abandonment, wrong and false diagnoses, medical tests, hard and unsuccessful treatment trials, physical and psychological abuses, my body (but also my spirit) has drastically weakened and the disease has strengthened to the point that no less than 6 co-infections of the disease occur as well as an increased resistance to all types of drugs and treatments, making me one of the most severe cases of Lyme and coinfections (SPPT) in Europe. 

For 10 years, I am monitored and treated by several great European doctors specialized in the Lyme disease, who came to the conclusion that I was part of their very few patients whom treatment has failed an who need other forms of treatment not available in France.
I still have several opportunities, maybe somewhere else in Europe or in the US. Unfortunately, these are very heavy treatments, difficult to bear and very expensive, which require many years of follow-up and cares, as well as an important preparation before being able to receive them. 

I have not yet been able to follow this protocol, because it’s difficult to access, but above all, far too expensive for me.

One year of cares can cost up to 200 000 euros not counting the related travel expenses, and the preparation treatment. I don’t have this amount and it prevents me from improving my condition.
With the help of my family, we have thus created this association to help me to fund my current treatments, already costly, and to achieve this money pot of last resort which I hope could heal me, or enable me to live better, a little more like everybody. My dream is to be at least as independent as possible in my life, to suffer less from multiple pains, and to be able to move in a wheelchair, perhaps even walk again.

I therefore appeal to your generosity to help me to materialize this miracle cure I have long been looking forward.

Each donation will be welcomed. Even €1 per month would be a nice way to contribute! 

Many thanks to you all.


In addition to occasional or regular donations you can make at any time, sales are periodically held for the benefit of the association thanks to artists who have been mobilizing for my cause and offer all sales revenues in support of the association.


We also offer sessions of counselling, hypnosis, PNL or coaching with ATome Thérapies so that everybody can benefit from them, even from a distance for those who can’t move and need them, like me.


And if you have questions about the association, you can contact us by e-mail in the Contact section or on social media, on the Facebook page "Mal à Lyme".


Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity which will help me to live.


Audrey