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28 Hudson Valley Parent n April 2019 fatal if not caught early enough. If it is caught in time, it is typically treated with antibiotics and will clear up after a full course of medication. For Perry's son, however, the treatment was more complicated than that. Her son is allergic to amoxicillin, ruling out the most common medicine used to treat Lyme disease in children. The special medicine Benjamin had to be on was rare and needed to be specially made. "He would start a dose of antibiotics, and then the manufacturer would stop distributing that medicine," she says. Her son would then have to get a new prescription. The medication needed to be refrigerated and could only be preserved for short periods of time, meaning Perry had to pick By ELORA TOCCI O ne morning last September, Pamela Perry's six-year-old son could not get out of bed. As he complained about exhaustion and excruciating head pain, Perry's friends and family members assured her he was just tired out from the school year starting up again. But Perry had a gut feeling that something else was wrong. After a few days, she took him to the doctor, where her suspicions were confirmed: her son Benjamin had Lyme disease. Debilitating symptoms, medical complications and constant worry Lyme can be debilitating or even up a new dose every other week. Each time she picked up the medication, she worried about the toll the strong drug was taking on her child's young body. The stronger medication he had to take agitated his digestive system, and he started taking double his regular dose of probiotics to balance out the effects. He also had some trouble focusing in school and struggled with the constant feeling of exhaustion that is a hallmark of Lyme disease. Fortunately, though, his most recent round of medication has worked, and the Lyme symptoms have dissipated. Still, Perry worries about her son's health much more than she did before the diagnosis. "I am now hyper paranoid," she says. "As soon as he spikes a fever or gets Protect your family from Lyme disease Mother shares terrifying experience: "My son couldn't get out of bed!" Pamela Perry (not pictured) says her son never had a bullseye rash and she never saw the tick that bit him. While others assured her that her son was fine, she trusted her motherly instinct and took her son to the doctor.