Hello, I'm Helen from Flourish Partners, my business partner, Justin and I are passionate about Lyme Disease and our company is in the process of developing a diagnostic test that will be available in 3 formats.

1) An over the counter test - bought in the supermarket or pharmacy.

2) A digital test that can be utilized in the doctors office using biomarkers

3) & A lab test.

None of these tests are based on blood - we're using urine as we feel from a scientific perspective this is a better route.

We've spent a very long time looking at Lyme and the impact that it has on families, clinicians and health economics globally. It is apparent that there are great difficulties in diagnosing Lyme Disease and the impact of this is catastrophic.  Yes we are profit making, but our intention is to commercialize these tests and then utilize the money we generate to continue further research into Lyme and also to help fund patients with treatment.  We want to give something back... Children, parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents suffer as Lyme isn't choosy it can infect anyone and we are parents ourselves as well as scientists.

We feel that the majority of currently funded Lyme Disease research has done little or nothing for the Lyme Patient Community. We want to change that and be as patient-centric as we can. We don't want to be confused with Big Pharma; we are a group of people who want to make a difference in this awful disease.

Developing diagnostics is very expensive; however our test will rule Lyme in or out. Therefore not only will it be able to diagnose Lyme, it will see if the bacteria are still present after a treatment regime.  From all of the tweets @flourishinfo we get on a daily basis, we know how devastating this disease is, how expensive Lyme diagnosis and treatment is, many people are having to travel internationally to find an LLMD - yet their hands can often be tied too as they can only utilize the tests that are available to them. Any funding no matter how small, will help us develop this much needed test. One less patient to get Lyme disease, one less child to get chronic Lyme Disease, one less death from Lyme - our goal is to diagnose Lyme more accurately & much faster to facilitate better treatment and to stop it in its tracks before it becomes chronic.

Staci Grodin of Global Lyme Alliance states on their corporate video that "there is not a reliable diagnostic tool available first step, do you have the illness, do you not have the illness?" - this is exactly what we are confident that we can and will achieve.

What We Need & What You Get 

We need a huge amount of money.  We've been using our own funds to get us to where we are, but we just can't generate enough to be able to get the tests to market. There are regulatory, clinical trials etc that need to be done.  We're very excited to report that people have been offering us their blood and urine to utilise during testing on twitter - lyme sufferers see the need for what we are trying to achieve.

• funding is competitive - we appreciate that there are other projects out there, but we feel ours is so important we won't stop till we get it. It's risky as are all science projects, but with years of experience, drive and determination, we feel that this is worth a shot - because if it does work it will change the lives of Lyme patients on a global basis for evermore.
• We want to complete other Lyme Projects and help as many people as we can, whether it's education or funding.
• If we don't reach our entire goal, all funds will be used towards this project. 

The Impact

Lyme costs $3.1b USD per year to treat in the US - a lot of patients have to travel internationally to get diagnosis and treatment protocols. There are more cases of Lyme each year diagnosed than some cancers, yet it is treated very differently.  People are dying, they are being treated for many different diseases as we all know that Lyme is the great mimicker. This is just wrong!  Adults & children are accused of faking their illness or diagnosed with having taken a drug overdose  - please see the video I uploaded. I can't imagine how it must feel to feel really ill everyday, yet not be believed.

I could go on and on about Lyme disease and its impact and our 13.9k tweets refer to it everyday - by developing our tests this is our effort to try and diagnose Lyme disease and to help, nothing more,  nothing less. 

We know that these tests will make a huge difference and we'll never lose sight of that and what we are trying to achieve.

• Lyme could end up in your family; all it takes is an infected tick bite and it is happening every day . Help us help you - if it happens, you can take our test and go to the doctors for some treatment straight away. This would minimize the risk of the disease becoming chronic.The tests will be available globally - that's our plan!.
• Also if you already have been diagnosed with Lyme Disease and are having treatment, our test could illustrate whether or not the bacteria are still present - therefore if the treatment protocol is successfully combatting/not effective for the disease in your body, our test would be extremely useful to you and your clinician.
• We're all extremely successful scientists, commercial, marketing, sales specialists who have managed projects like this before, but the difference with this one is that it isn't for a huge global company, it is for ourselves, a team committed to Lyme Disease and making an impact on global patient health.

 Risks & Challenges

 Science is risky, but with the skill, experience and know how we will bring these tests to market. We're confident we can do this and we're compelled to as we know the difference it can and will make to people's lives.

Any donations that you can make would really make a difference to us.  We already have the digital element and the POCT platform ready to go - so the risk of failure is relatively low.

https://www.indiegogo.com/campaigns/an-available-accurate-test-for-lyme-disease/edit#/basics

Other Ways You Can Help

Please share as much information about Lyme as you can, there are many Lyme alliance groups that can help and offer advice - the more noise we make about Lyme Disease the better!

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS CAMPAIGN.